I suspect it's because it works for enough people that it pays off.

Every now and then I forget how annoying it was last time, and I think it would be nice to donate money to some sort of charity, and then they proceed to spam me for the following year. A couple years later I forget about he experience, and the cycle begins again.

I experienced this after donating money and volunteering a few days to support a local public defense charity for people who can’t afford legal representation, but then I started getting emails from other charities. I once decided to let this ride and see how far that email address would go (signed up using a gmail account with a “+charity_name”).

In the span of two years the following happened:

* Original Charity I actually donated money to started emailing me

* then a second local charity I did NOT donate money to

* then I began getting messages from a local political candidate who was friendly with first charity

* soon after that Another local political candidate

* Then a statewide political action committee.

At no point in that original donation flow was I ever even asked “can we email you other communications?” I presume the “we will share your email with anyone we damn well please” was baked into whatever boilerplate privacy policy existed in the background of the site they used to collect and process donation payments. Which is a whole other problem.

Is “getting out of hand” a hyperbolic reaction to how cavalier the use of mailing lists and newsletters have become when people sign up just to use a personal finance app or donate to causes?

I donated $20 to doctors without borders four years ago (a friend wanted that in lieu of bday presents). I've since gotten close to 50 letters from them and other charities. That cost far outweighs the $20 I gave them.

Was this part of that feature happening on Facebook where people can create “campaigns” or just an ad hoc request to donate?

She requested it on facebook via one of those things, but I donated directly on their website since..facebook.

Because people like the GP and the GGP click "Spam" instead of the unsubscribe link/process for these services. (I do the same if I can't unsubscribe easily.) Any service that requires me to login to unsubscribe, rather than provide a tokenized unsubscribe link in the email, can suck it.

> GP and the GGP click "Spam" instead of the unsubscribe link/process for these services.

If the unsubscribe link goes to a third party site, it's literally indistinguishable from a phishing attempt.

you worried they might get the email address they just emailed you on out of you?