The CAN-SPAM Act, a law that sets the rules for commercial emails, includes a requirement to tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from businesses. This is why, when you get a commercial email, it is supposed to give a way to stop receiving such emails. Methods can include replying to the email and putting a certain subject such as “unsubscribe” or have it in the body of the email itself when replying, etc. Some emails come with a link that you are supposed to click on to unsubscribe. While in the past this has been a legitimate way to unsubscribe to certain emails, this is now superseded by a more basic rule of email handling, DO NOT CLICK ON LINKS IN EMAILS FROM UNKNOWN SENDERS.

Why? because this is one of the easiest ways to infect your computer. All you have to do is click on that “unsubscribe” link and it takes you to a malicious website that will try to infect your computer just by virtue of accessing the webpage your web browser will land on.

So if you get an email that looks like spam, and you want to handle it, do it in some other way if unsubscribing means clicking on a link. I wouldn’t even bother sending an email asking the sender to stop sending those emails, as that is a known way to harvest valid email addresses for further spamming. Block the sender if you want, mark the email as spam so your spam filter will learn to better recognize it, report it if you wish, but that’s it. Don’t fall for the trick.