Gmail – Now unsubscribes you from newsletter lists

Google has announced a new service for Gmail users, which allows them to unsubscribe from newsletters.  On the face of it, this ‘seems’ like a useful new feature. However, in reality it doesn’t do much!

Gmail newsletter unsubscribe feature

Previously, if you wanted to unsubscribe from a newsletter, you would click the unsubscribe link in the newsletter and be auto-removed from the list.  This is usually a 1 or 2 click operation.  If you use the new Gmail unsubscribe feature, it just does exactly the same!

Remember, the success of your unsubscribe request will still be governed by how ethical the newsletter sender is. If you are still getting newsletters after unsubscribing, it becomes a spam problem – not an unsubscribe problem.

Gmail still has the really useful report spam feature, for any spam that gets past its filters.  If someone still sends you newsletters after you unsubscribe, just report their sad butts as spam and let Google deal with it.

However, if you just want to stop receiving a regular newsletter, I can’t see this new Gmail feature making it any easier to get off a mailing list than it was before.