Sign-up Spam

Sign-up spam is replacing comment spam as a source of annoyance.

I send out an email newsletter about once a week. Four weeks ago, I happened to notice that lots of people who had signed up had not yet opted in. (My sender of choice, Buttondown, makes that easy to see). I had done a bit of a purge some time ago, but this was a noticeable uptick. So, I deleted 25 signups. I also noted that 3 people had complained, all of them unactivated. The next week it was 58 spam signups with 2 complaints, and today 71 spam signups and 2 complaints.

The numbers go up, but I am still hoping this is not a trend. And the complainers worry me. Presumably these are people whose actual email addresses have been used without their knowledge. I wonder, do they blame me, the innocent party is all this? And if they do, could there be any consequences?

In the meantime, I will add cleanup to the list of chores that accompany preparing an email to be sent, and continue to curse the selfish people who ruin everything for the rest of us.