My email account has been forever ruined, and I hold Act Blue responsible. In the run up to the 2020 elections, I contributed to numerous Democratic campaigns (presidential, US Senate and House, and some state races) all through Act Blue— in aggregate between $2,000-$3,000. Some of those contributions were solicited and promoted here at Daily Kos. But I’m not doing that anymore, my email account has become a political garbage dump that is functionally worthless for the relatively small amount of valuable incoming email.
Everyday, when I am up to it, I must delete scores of unwanted solicitations, some from campaigns that I previously donated to, and others that have acquired my email address through purchase or from campaign staffers that move from one campaign to another with contact lists. Many days, I am not up to deleting junk, which is why I have 5,000 unread emails in my inbox. It unfortunate becasue I often learn in an untimely way that I have missed something that I consider important. If I want to waste even more of my time, I can attempt to unsubscribe to individual solicitations, an ineffective process that is little more than a cruel joke that campaigns are just “too busy” to get around to in a timely manner before the Finance Director takes the email list to another campaign.
Act Blue says the following: “Please keep in mind that we do not send out fundraising emails on behalf of any campaigns or organizations. If you are receiving any other political emails from candidates or organizations you will need to unsubscribe from them individually. There is typically an “Unsubscribe” link or button included at the bottom of those emails. We do not share your email address with anyone but the campaign or organization you donate to.” [my Emphasis added]
As far as I’m concerned this is unacceptable: “We do not share your email address with anyone BUT the campaign or organization you donate to.” In other words, we just dump it on the street. To act responsibly, every ActBlue and every individual campaign should offer a opt-in choice for follow-up emails. A distant second best would be for campaigns to offer a rigorously observed opt-out choice. Unless a donor expressly opts-in, any follow-up email should be withheld.
Commercial spam in general is also a problem — one that I believe could be alleviated by ISP’s being required to levy a 1-cent charge per email message. But if politicians ever adopted such regulation, they would likely exempt themselves just as they have done for robo-calls. But that’s perhaps a topic for another day.
I would like to see a robust discussion on the topic of unsolicited political email, so please rec and comment. In the meantime, I’m done with ActBlue — and for many campaigns that’s all there seems to be. So, you’ll have to find me another way and ask for some other form of payment.