Not using aliases I've become very skeptical of unsubscribe links in general, even if they are in emails of "reputable" and established brands, as scammers are now spoofing regular marketing emails like that in the same way they've been doing with PayPal/Battle.net/Banks for years.
Tbh often it does not feel like it's worth the effort, due to the sheer amount of spam you end up getting the older an email address gets, it feels like trying to shovel all the water out of the ocean with a spoon.
Are there any good resources out there as to where and how to report such actors? Does this actually help/change anything? I can't imagine there being much of a shortage of shady mail providers.
The vast, vast majority of spam that I get is from otherwise perfectly reasonable companies who don't understand the law.
To that end, my steps are:
1. Try their unsubscribe, give them a few days for it to "take effect" (which is nonsense, but, so it goes)
2. Send a polite, but direct email to `postmaster@`, and usually cc `webmaster@` - it usually goes to somebody.
3. If none of the above works, pull the full email headers and `dig` around some to find their MX provider, and file a claim with `abuse@` on the provider.
That being said, again usually it's an ignorance problem. I have a friend who helps run a company that does escape rooms, and I had only provided my email on a release form. However a few months later, I started getting marketing spam from them to that email - oops. A lot of small companies don't understand the regs around marketing emails and treat them the same as all other emails.
Tbh often it does not feel like it's worth the effort, due to the sheer amount of spam you end up getting the older an email address gets, it feels like trying to shovel all the water out of the ocean with a spoon.
Are there any good resources out there as to where and how to report such actors? Does this actually help/change anything? I can't imagine there being much of a shortage of shady mail providers.