CUNY Academic Commons

Thanks for the report. You're probably right that this is what's happened in the past.

The "unsubscribe" link in BPGES emails has behaved in this way for a long time - since it was introduced in 2012, according to the git logs. In that time, I don't recall hearing about this issue, on the Commons or elsewhere.

The problem with requiring logins to unsubscribe is that it partly defeats the purpose of having an easy way to stop what might be annoying emails. A user who used to be an active Commons user, and suddenly starts getting notifications about a long-dormant group, arguably should not have to log in to stop the emails; they may have lost their password, they may not have access to the email account, etc. See eg https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/log-in-to-unsubscribe-from-this-e-mail-annoying-possibly-illegal/, or section 5 of https://www.kentico.com/blog/9-things-you-need-to-know-about-anti-spam-law-and-opt-outs. In BuddyPress itself, for comparison, the unsubscribe links in emails (which are different from the ones you're discussing here, but are similar in spirit) are intentionally usable when logged out. https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/7390#comment:19 The argument here would be that email content is understood as private, and users who forward email are responsible for removing non-private content as needed.

I'm copying Ray because he may have thought about this somewhat in his work on the Unsubscribe tools here and in BP.

Thanks for your cogent thoughts on this, Boone. I wonder whether we could add some kind of very slight confirmation step that could mention the username of the username in question, e.g.:

Yes, please unsubscribe user mkgold from email notifications from this group

Doing so wouldn't prevent malicious behavior, but it might (?) prevent a situation in which someone thought they were unsubscribing themselves, not another person.

I kind of think this is relatively low priority, but today I received another email, sent to a department listserv, that had been forwarded from the Commons, so I think it is going to be increasingly common as the CAC is used by programs

I think that your wording sounds right, Ray.

thank you!