The Impotent Inbox

Three companies, one AI trend, and the experiment I'm running to stop giving my inbox away for free.

I have 1,390 unread messages in my inbox telling me that my inbox is impotent.

It’s time to turn the opt-out model of email on its head to fix it.

I wanted another Apple HomePod speaker for our home. Found it online for in-store pickup at my local Electronic Express. I added it to the cart, checked out as a guest, and forgot about it.

A couple of years later, I received a spam message addressed to: electronicexpress-0921@k3bert.net. I was confused; I didn’t create an account with them. Why am I receiving spam?

I looked up the address on Have I Been Pwned and found out that in Feb of 2023, Eye4Fraud, an online fraud protection system used during payment transactions, was breached and the data made available to hackers.

The forgotten email came back to life until I created an inbox rule to delete any messages sent to electronicexpress-0921@k3bert.net permanently. Opt-out.

And then there was the time I decided to sign up for updates to my Alma Mater, CU. I opted to receive alum emails at cualumni@k3bert.net related to the engineering school, from which I graduated.

I received my first few updates, but then there was a shift. It wasn’t just updates on the School of Engineering; the emails were now boosters for the Alumni Association and covered other clubs and associations within the university. And then, to make matters worse, someone from the Alumni Association started calling. Their whole job is traveling around meeting alumni to “catch up,” which I’m fairly sure means asking for money.

I tried to opt-out through my mail preferences, but the emails and calls kept coming in.

I created an inbox rule to delete any messages sent to cualumni@k3bert.net permanently. Opt-out and blocked the phone number.

And then there was Verizon and Heritage Bank and Trust. For a few years, we did business with these companies until we stopped and permanently closed our accounts. Or at least we thought.

But, for months after closing the accounts, we still received monthly statements of our accounts. Confused, I called several times, explaining the accounts were closed and that there was no need to send us statements anymore. They agreed. The emails kept coming.

I created an inbox rule to delete any message sent to their aliases permanently. Opt-out.

Today, AI agents are augmenting and supercharging inbox rules and, if you decide, will take over your entire inbox for you. But what’s the difference between an AI agent managing your inbox for you versus you manually managing the rules? Other than out of sight, out of mind, it’s still opt-out.

In the immortal words of Buzz Lightyear: “This isn’t flying, it’s falling with style.”

And personally, I’m not all that comfortable with an AI agent crawling through my inbox and noticing who I shop or bank with, what credit cards I have, when I received my tax return, or when I pay my utility bills. This is all personal information that I would like to keep personal.

For years, I’ve been trying to manage the 1,390 unread messages like most everyone else. Giving out my email, receiving unwanted messages, trying to opt-out, giving up, and waving the white flag.

And now, I’m tinkering. I’ve started an experiment with my personal k3bert.net domain that, if successful, I’ll transition the domain my wife and I share for all our household accounts.

The experiment started with a declaration of email bankruptcy, archiving off all my messages into cold storage. And a gate slotted in front of the domain that inspects all senders and aliases, comparing them to an allowed list. When a new email arrives and the sender is not in the allowed list, I have a choice to allow the email to land in my inbox; in other words, I opt-in.