Sometimes even the good guys send spam

Just a minor rant, as I clean out the trap of another spam filter (gmail, this time)

Awhile back, I had subscribed to the MinutemanHQ.com (link deliberately left out, if you want some of this, find it yourself) newsletter. All was fine for quite some time, but then I noticed I started getting the same emails from several different addresses. “Right v. Left”, “Christian (something), etc. At first I assumed it was an short-term error, so I adjusted my filters to shuffle them all off into the same folder and ignored the duplicates. Then more poured in. And more.

Let me just say I’ve never subscribed to any of the “extra” sites or newsletters… just the Minuteman site.

I asked them to unsubscribe me using the links provided in the email. I was not unsubscribed. I did it again and I think I have been unsub’d from the one I signed up for, but according to the filter I just emptied out, not the others.

For whatever reason, the Minutemen have chosen to share their mailing list without permission. Their friends/allies/whatever are sending the *exact same* emails as the main list, only from a variety of different addresses. I could well understand if they had their own mailing lists and duplicated another newsletter to their own, but this is nonsense. I honestly think these people have good intentions, but are simply naive.

I have no idea how to contact these other groups without breaking the cardinal rule of spam-fighting by replying or following links in the unwanted messages. Most of them are now being caught by the several spam filters I’ve placed between me and my email, so it shouldn’t really bother me too much anymore, but that’s not the point.

I’d really hate to make a federal CAN-SPAM case out of it, since I doubt malice is the root here, just complete ignorance.

/rant off…