I just read the first 100 messages in my Gmail spam box. Five had unsubscribe links that were highly suspicious -- misleading .ru domains and GET parameters that could not possibly identify me. Four had links that were paired with US addresses and worked. Three had seemingly legitimate links that led to broken forms. The other 88 had no unsubscribe link in the body of the email.
I think the author's claim is correct. For emails that aren't patently absurd and contain a mailing address, clicking unsubscribe links seems like a good idea. Unfortunately for me, I'm stuck with the other 96%.
Unfortunately for me, I'm stuck with the other 96%.
I would say "Fortunately for me, Google is stuck with the rest."
About once a year, spammers find a way around Google's spam filters for 3-4 weeks, which means I might see a non-flagged spam message show up in my mailbox every couple of days. Beyond that, I don't even think about spam anymore (including worrying about false positives, which I haven't seen in years [if at all]).
Above and beyond everything else positive or negative about Google, this one thing will cause me to always have a warm place in my heart for Google.
Ironically, I looked in my spam folder today just to see what percentage were the ".ru" type and...found a message from Twitter that got delivered yesterday saying how they are going to switch to OAuth on 8/31 (Really, twitter, a month late? [and it wasn't Google, since I got the message for two accounts for two email addresses yesterday]).
I think the author's claim is correct. For emails that aren't patently absurd and contain a mailing address, clicking unsubscribe links seems like a good idea. Unfortunately for me, I'm stuck with the other 96%.