It's pretty much a coin toss. If the spammer is a honest one, you'll get unsubscribed. If he's a malicious one, you'll get marked as "active reader" and get enrolled in even more spam lists.

The second option silently assumes that it's actually worth the spammer's time to keep track of "good" and "bad" recipients, that is, that having a tracking system is more cost-effective than simply sending more spam. That may or may not be true. You have to decide that on your own.

I tend to disregard the "you may get infected" argument, because it's not a threat exclusive to spam - you should keep your browser updated and ignore install requests all the time, not just sometimes.

I personally tend to ignore spam and wait for mailbox provider to update their filters. But I do believe that many unsubscribe links are legit because few times they've worked for me.

It's pretty much a coin toss. If the spammer is a honest one, you'll get unsubscribed. If he's a malicious one, you'll get marked as "active reader" and get enrolled in even more spam lists.

The second option silently assumes that it's actually worth the spammer's time to keep track of "good" and "bad" recipients, that is, that having a tracking system is more cost-effective than simply sending more spam. That may or may not be true. You have to decide that on your own.

I'd disregard the "you may get infected" argument, because it's not a threat exclusive to spam - you should keep your browser updated and ignore install requests all the time, not just sometimes.

I personally tend to ignore spam and wait for mailbox provider to update their filters. But I do believe that many unsubscribe links are legit because few times they've worked for me.