Report spam button

What it means

In Gmail, selecting a message and clicking Report spam moves it to Spam. Google's help says Google receives a copy of the reported email and may analyse it to protect users, and that as a user reports more spam, Gmail identifies similar emails as spam more efficiently. For mail the user signed up for, the same help page points to Unsubscribe instead.

For the sender, each click is a complaint. It counts in the user-reported spam rate in Postmaster Tools, and at providers with complaint feedback loops, such as Yahoo and Microsoft's JMRP, it produces a report back to enrolled senders. M3AAWG names the spam button as the most frequent way recipients complain.

Google requires bulk senders to offer one-click unsubscribe and a visible unsubscribe link in marketing mail, which gives recipients an easier way out than the spam button.