Thus as someone who want to receive the emails I subscribe to, even though I don’t always have time to read them, I dream up ways that this can be achieved.

Spammers don’t currently try to fake being Aweber or other service providers, but if filtering based just upon the word “Aweber” became common, I am sure they would.

There are ways I could do it myself.

Use a little PHP to create a key
Populate a custom field at signup
Instruct subscribers how to add that key to their filters

The thing that stops me doing that is familiarity – you do things a way that is different to everyone else, then users get confused.
For email service providers to implement it would be an ideal situation, as then it becomes uniform.

It is also a case then that once set up, it works for all account holders.

How many spam emails pretend to come from AWeber, iContact, …, but do not?
Major email marketing service providers (like the above) *AND* Gmail do have sender authentication [http://www.openspf.org/Related_Solutions] in place.

The problem is Gmail doesn’t give it enough weight. Content and community feedback is a central part of their spam algorithm. And we know that for some people spam is the second email in the same week, … and why unsubscribe when the “this is spam button” smiles at them so nicely.

Google says: “Many webmail services support a single authentication system to verify senders and help identify forged messages. Gmail supports multiple authentication systems, including SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DomainKeys, and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), so we can be more certain that your mail is from who it says it’s from. Also, unlike many other providers that automatically let through all mail from certain senders, making it possible for their messages to bypass spam filters, Gmail puts all senders through the same rigorous checks.” [Source http://www.google.com/mail/help/fightspam/spamexplained.html

That second part of the paragraph is where the problem lies.

Gmail’s spam filter is infamous for its high percentage of false positives.
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007217

So who is to blame?
The legitimate senders and their service providers do a hell of a lot already.

(GoDaddy’s spam filter works great for me by the way.)

Thus it would be included in every email that is sent by that provider to that email address, irrespective of list owner.

As far as I know, there is nothing in headers from Aweber that I can use that is personal to me, that I can use as an override “never spam” that couldn’t somehow be worked out by a spammer.
I can filter on Aweber, or maybe on other elements, but all those could be faked easily. The key couldn’t.

Whatever mechanisms there are at the moment they aren’t working for me, and I shouldn’t have to manualy go though thousands of spam emails to find the good ones every couple of weeks, because that just serves the spammers in their emails being seen.

Regarding your Hash Key Proposal:
Still, the mail provider needs to recognize the key. They decide what goes into the inbox and what goes into the spam box.

We have available SPF, Domain Keys, even subscription info and unsubscribe links in the extended mail headers, … and email marketing service providers like iContact and AWeber (and others) who go through the effort dealing with feedback loops, …

In theory this should suffice to identify mail a recipient has really subscribed for and let it bypass certain spam filters anyway.

So why do you think an additional mechanism — the hash key — would cure that. Maybe I miss something here.

Yours
John

If you signed up for a mailing list you no longer want, unsubscribe.
If you are receiving emails you didn't subscribe for, hit spam though it is 99.9% certain if you receive emails from any of the listed autoresponders, you probably asked for the emails to be sent, and it is also safe to unsubscribe.