Spam is not weather. Your address reached a list, and there are a limited number of ways that happens — a company sold or shared it, a company was breached, it was scraped from somewhere public, it was guessed, or you signed up for something that passed it on.
That matters because it changes what "doing something about spam" means. There are exactly four mechanisms available, and they act at different points:
- Filtering sorts mail after it reaches your mail system. Necessary, never sufficient — the FTC's own guidance notes that filters aren't perfect.
- Unsubscribing asks a sender to stop. Legally backed in the US, and binding only on the sender you asked.
- Removal asks third parties to delete records they already hold. A different problem — see the data brokers hub.
- Address control takes away the route a sender has to you, without needing anyone's cooperation.
Most advice covers the first two and stops. These guides cover all four, including where each one fails.