emailrules.today
Stop 1 of 8DeepWeeks or years earlier

GPC

Global Privacy Control — a browser signal to opt out of sale/sharing of personal data, not automatically “stop all email.”

Say it out loud

A browser signal about selling and sharing data. It is not an unsubscribe, and treating it as one is its own mistake.

GPC is a signal a browser sends on every request. In California and Colorado it must be honoured as an opt-out of sale and sharing, and of certain targeted advertising. It is not an email unsubscribe unless your own policy maps it to one, and inventing a legal ban the statute does not write is as wrong as ignoring the signal.

In the messageWhat the signal actually looks likePublished values
GET /collections/coffee HTTP/2
Host: aurora.com
Sec-GPC: 1

One header, on every request from that browser. That is the whole mechanism.

https://aurora.com/.well-known/gpc.json

Where you declare that you honour it. A JSON file, two fields.

It arrives at your website, not at your email platform. Nothing in Klaviyo will ever show you a GPC signal — the wiring between the two is yours to build.

Yours

Nobody does this for you.

What goes wrong

Two opposite failures, and teams manage both. Ignoring the signal entirely because it never appears in the email tool; or suppressing the person from all email, which is not what the statute asks for and quietly destroys a legitimate subscriber.

The dated rules behind this

A definition is not a citation. These are the pages with the primary source, the date it was published, and what to do about it.

See also

Where this sits

Stop 1, you get the address. Someone hands you an email address, and the terms of that handover decide everything after it.

FAQ

Awkward questions

Who is this actually for?

People who ship email and are too busy to re-read every PDF: week-one marketers, lifecycle/CRM, deliverability, multi-country ops, DTC brands, agencies — on Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Braze, HubSpot, SFMC, or something else. Pick your tool and geos so product-specific pages only appear when they match. EU and UK are first-class filters. Not for people who sell tools about email and need a fake score to demo.

Why only ~40 rules? Isn’t that… thin?

On purpose. A wall of 400 undated “best practices” is how you look busy and still get burned. Every page needs a primary source we actually read. Thin and checkable beats fat and folklore. Europe, bulk inbox rules, measurement honesty, and protocol topics like BIMI/DMARC policy are on the shelf when we can cite them — not every Member State and not every vendor myth. Coverage map lists what we still refuse to invent.

Is this legal advice?

No. If it were, you’d have a billable hour and a longer PDF. This is a dated operator reference written by an email geek. Confirm anything high-stakes with counsel who knows your facts. Same for “will this make me compliant?” — no tool does that. Lawyers and judges do. We say what the sources say and what to do first on Monday.

Why no trust score out of 100?

Because we refuse to invent a number you can’t audit. Fake scores sell seed tests and panic. You get findings, dates, and links. If that feels less exciting than a red dial, good — you’re not the red-dial customer.

Why should I trust you more than my ESP’s blog?

ESPs sell seats. Seed-score vendors sell fear. AI invents citations when nobody watches. We sell nothing today — no pixels, no placement scores, no affiliate — so we can say when a tool is the problem. A human verifies, dates, and corrects in public. Tools may help draft; they do not ship unsourced claims. Check the primary links. Fail that test and leave.

Do I need an account?

No. Filters live in this browser and the URL. Share the link. That’s it. Accounts come later only if they earn it — not so we can nurture you about email.

I’m an agency. Where’s multi-client mode?

We tried a client-name CRM on the setup card. It made the product feel like work before it felt useful. Role filters + copy link + one-page brief (optional PDF title) is enough for now. Complexity comes back when the free shelf is habit, not before.

Is the quiet changelog a bug?

No. Quiet means nothing material moved. We don’t invent urgency so the homepage looks “alive.” Sticky risks still show what usually needs a person when the market is still.