Just read a hilarious update by a classmate on Facebook – a user asked to temporarily unsubscribe from her mailing list because she did not want to receive “impertinent” email while on vacation 
Now, it is common to ask the US Postal service to hold your snail mail for you when you go away for an extended period of time. Back in the day, when people still used to have those things called newspapers delivered to their homes, you could put that on hold too (with an option to donate your copies to a hospital, etc while you were away).
Email does offer you the “Out of Office” robot email. But what about all those mailing lists you are subscribed to? Why should you have to unsubscribe and then resubscribe, just so that [a] you don’t see non pertinent stuff while away or [b] you don’t come home to a flooded inbox?
Why not have your email do this for you automagically? So you just say that you will be “away” for a period of time and all subscription type emails that come in are quietly deleted for you.
I would also like my email to be intelligent and tell me something like – sweetie, you have read only 2 of the last 516 emails from this mailing list. Obviously, this is not something that interests you any longer. Would you like me to unsubscribe you?
