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Gmail marking email from me as spam

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Re: Gmail marking email from me as spam

#281

Post by gnicholas »

sdan wrote: post #8

Google's making us play by their rules: 1. Our ML models see that your emails spam? You're spam. 2. You're using Tor or a VPN? Here's 10 reCaptcha's. 3. Don't use Google Webmaster or use AMPs? Good luck finding your page on the 1st page. 4. Youtube video includes education hacking tutorials? Demonetized. Obviously some alternatives are moving to Fastmail and using Duck Duck Go, but we need Google to stop this "my way…

FWIW, I tried creating a Hacker News account via Tor. I was hit with an unending stream of CAPTCHAs. Eventually gave up.

I was surprised/disappointed to see this happen on HN.

Re: Gmail marking email from me as spam

#282

Post by secabeen »

I run into a similar situation, and I have done every thing you are supposed to. DMARC, SPF, MTA-STS, DKIM, all of it. I have only one IP address that ever sends legitimate email from my domain (I proxy all my personal messages through that IP), on AWS, and it's been that way for years.

Despite that, the reputation systems give my system a neutral reputation. Sure, I know that there are lots of people who spam through AWS, but AWS IPs are not allocated in bunches, and anyone can get one. There should be some way to get my reputation up to good, but I haven't yet figured it out.

Re: Gmail marking email from me as spam

#283

Post by heavyset_go »

rapind wrote: post #199
the_pwner224 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google's ML mail spam models are that way because there's too many bad actors. Email, even in 2019, still extremely valuable. Google's spam models freaking suck donkey dick. I use Fastmail but my university uses Google for email. A service we use (Piazza, class Q&A) sends notifications via email. Over the years I have gotten probably about 1k email notifications from them, and replied to a few of them too. Google h…

I'm not defending gmail, but I will say that some users simply suck (unintentionally). I bet some of your peers are just hitting the spam button instead of simply deleting the email, generating a bad reputation for the sender. I've seen this with my SaaS. We ONLY send transactional emails like purchase receipts and login links (using postmark). We're very intentional about not sending anything remotely resembling mar…

> I'm not defending gmail, but I will say that some users simply suck (unintentionally). I bet some of your peers are just hitting the spam button instead of simply deleting the email, generating a bad reputation for the sender.

And yet other companies with spam reporting features are able to maintain a lower false positive rate with their spam filters.

Re: Gmail marking email from me as spam

#284

Post by pera »

S-E-P wrote: post #270

Later down the thread it shows that OVH Hosting's reputation is probably the reason why it's marked as spam. https://talosintelligence.com/reputation_center/lookup?searc... ^ pretty nifty look at how your neighbors screw you sometimes

That's most likely the reason: OVH is well known for their lack of attention on spammers using their VPSs, so most operators will just filter their IP blocks.

I run a low volume email server and 100% of the connections from OVH blocks are spam/phishing/vuln-scanning/etc. It's true that Gmail could do more to help low volume operators understand deliverability problems, but in my opinion OVH should be doing something about their spam issue.

My advice when looking for a VPS provider for running an email server is to read their AUP and check their blocks on Talos.

Re: Gmail marking email from me as spam

#285

Post by luckylion »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #255
luckylion wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but what if email is the only way to reach you? I have no idea if it actually is, but it might be a legal issue too in some jurisdictions. German law for example requires commercial sites to have an option for quick and electronic communication - Email is generally a valid choice. If your mail server rejects incoming mail (be it because it's overly sensitive, offline, or you never bothered setting it up etc), that…

Wouldn’t a simple contact form on a website meet the definition of quick and electronic communication?

Yes, but that has it's own challenges with spam protection, privacy laws, users not spelling their email correctly etc, and you still need an email address to receive those messages (or check for new form entries regularly), so an email address is often used as a shortcut.

Re: Gmail marking email from me as spam

#286

Post by driverdan »

huhtenberg wrote: post #232

Might be a good time to mention a new development with Yahoo Mail. They now appear to use a form of shadow ban. They will accept an email, with all outward symptoms being normal, but it will not appear anywhere in the user's mailbox. Not even in the Spam folder. This started few months ago when we were sending out our (rather infrequent) newsletter. 5th or so message to ...@yahoo.com address failed with 421 4.7.0 [TS…

I don't think this is new. Many email providers will throttle / blackhole you if they decide you're sending too fast or see too many bounces.

Slow down your send rate, make sure your server is configured correctly, and prune your lists.

Re: Gmail marking email from me as spam

#287

Post by al2o3cr »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #177
jacquesm wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way that Google would suddenly start to mark as spam continuations of threads that were perfectly fine between senders that have been in contact for years unless their spam filters were either seriously broken or they tweak them to cause more people to switch to gmail.

I'm afraid you're wrong here, Jacques. When you refer to specific threads going back and forth this may be. But here's my counter example. I sent emails to my girlfriend's gmail address from my own domain hosted on a mail server run by a reputable company for years with no problem, whatsoever. Then, on vacation in Thailand, my rather elaborate trip reports for which there's really no plausible explanation that they c…

    Always from the same account
...except for the part where they suddenly started having a source IP in the headers in Thailand.

That doesn't necessarily justify the response, but IMO claiming "nothing was different" when something very clearly was isn't helpful.

Re: Gmail marking email from me as spam

#290

Post by tambre »

Scramblejams wrote: post #26
LeoPanthera wrote: post #4

Is this problem unique to Gmail? Do owners of self-hosted mail servers also have problems sending mail to Yahoo, Outlook, AOL, iCloud? Do these providers have a better mechanism for getting yourself un-blocked?

In my experience struggling to deliver email from my self-hosted server, Gmail's by far the worst. Not that I haven't had the occasional issue with Yahoo, Outlook and AOL. But here's the key difference: Yahoo, Outlook and AOL actually offer tools to resolve the issue! For small senders like me who fall below Gmail's postmaster tools limits, we have no recourse other than trying to find some sympathetic Google employe…

If you actually are looking for advice, then in descending importance order:

* Enforce a DMARC policy instead of explicitly disabling it.

* Enforce a strict SPF policy instead of ~all.

* Send over IPv6. Usually stricter rules are applied and not-up-to-snuff emails are rejected at the SMTP level.

* Your provider hosts lots of spammers for their size. Consider switching.

* Enable MTA-STS.

The first two I'd consider obvious glaring mistakes. The next two are less important, but would help. MTA-STS is a nice-to-have.

I can't analyse your DKIM setup, since I don't know your selector. Feel free to send me a sample email if interested.

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