I didn't pay attention and posted an email I received on my blog. That post included a link to click if I wanted to unsubscribe. I did not want to do that, but later, I got a notice to re-subscribe if I wanted. I clicked on re-subscribe and went through the steps. About a month later, that whole thing happened again. Then, later, again. Finally, I wrote to the management and described what happened. A couple of days later, they told me a bot was unsubscribing me.
A what? A bot, short for "robot", also called "web bot" and other names, is not made of metal. It is software, a little program. I don't know all the details but a short program can be written and set to "crawl" the internet, exploring web pages. When it finds a link that it can recognize and click on, it does.
The whole sequence of events came back to me when I read the Wired article here:
https://www.wired.com/story/ftc-scalper-bots-biden-cybersecurity-security-roundup/
I don't know much about web bots but I did look up "bots" today. The link goes to a Wired magazine article about scalpers using bots to take possession of all the good seats offered online for an event, for the purpose of re-selling them at higher prices. I gather that the Federal Trade Commission takes a dim view of such practices. I thought of the online arrangements being made all over to get vaccinated.
As I looked up information about bots, I found that there are places where I can buy a bot. I am confident I could learn to write bots but buying one might be quicker. I saw a price range of something like $5-100. The more sophisticated price range is $40,000 to $100,000. I am not really in the market for buying or selling bots of any kind at this time.
