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Ask HN: Are you also getting extremely obvious spam bypassing Gmail's filters?

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Re: Ask HN: Are you also getting extremely obvious spam bypassing Gmail's filters?

#251

Post by dfdz »

nikau wrote: post #201
dfdz wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also been getting subtle professional spam consisting of very short emails, something like: from: kate.random.but.reasonable.name38 @ gmail . com Sorry for the delay, here is my email. Best, Kate Sometimes they are more obviously spam, but other times it seems nearly impossible for a spam filter to stop, like the example I provided.

I've gotten those, assume they are to try and train gmail to think they aren't spammers for future spam messages.

That is a good theory.

I was always assuming that if I reply, then they would send the spam links, but your theory is better.

Re: Ask HN: Are you also getting extremely obvious spam bypassing Gmail's filters?

#252

Post by Piskvorrr »

Tagbert wrote: post #193
dripton wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life pro tip: most recruiters can't write emails that look like they came from humans rather than spambots. If you're actively looking for a job, check all your spam folders daily. I can't tell you how many actual job leads have ended up in mine.

Also, recruiters sends large numbers of similar emails so they look like a spammer to the filters. Then if people who get them just mark them a spam rather than deleting or responding, the problem is compounded.

People who get them might not have opted into them. That is spam, by definition. Elephant in the room of "foot-in-the-door marketing"? I guess.

Re: Ask HN: Are you also getting extremely obvious spam bypassing Gmail's filters?

#253

Post by hda111 »

nikau wrote: post #200
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #21

For the last year or so I've noticed an increasing amount of my legitimate professional interactions going into my "Promotions" tab in Gmail. The effect of which has been, after discovering a few mishaps of this sort, to now regularly and meticulously go through a massive pile of "Promotions" just to make sure I haven't missed something legitimately urgent or important. Prior to Google's classification errors produci…

The only reliable low maintenance solution is to get your own domain with a catch all mail service. Then for every email interaction with a 3rd party you make a unique address like amazondotcom3823@yourdomain.com. You can then just add rules for each incoming mail domain to send them to a junk folder, especially if it was was a one time transaction and subsequent emails are just going to be marketing junk. It also le…

This would be illegal in Germany where you must take notice of every email accepted by your email server. The junk folder doesn’t help because you would need to read through it nonetheless.

Re: Ask HN: Are you also getting extremely obvious spam bypassing Gmail's filters?

#254

Post by Xochipilli »

Yes, and other people I know don't have the same problem. Making me think that everyone who has this issue is part of some A/B testing [1] bucket for an internal Gmail spam filtering experiment.

These A/B tests are quite common for products like these to test new features, such as a new spam filtering algorithm. Or even test the efficiency of an existing spam filtering algorithm by degrading the experience of a subset of users.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/B_testing

Re: Ask HN: Are you also getting extremely obvious spam bypassing Gmail's filters?

#255

Post by derekzhouzhen »

SPAM filters are useless anyway. I only filter the shit that don't even adhere to proper SMTP protocol and let everything in. I just mentally ignore SPAM in my inbox.

Simple filters in free software don't do much unless you spend your energy tweaking it, sophisticated filter like Gmail's has a hidden agenda against you.

Re: Ask HN: Are you also getting extremely obvious spam bypassing Gmail's filters?

#256

Post by Terretta »

gtirloni wrote: post #139
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like some people don't bother unsubscribing from lists, they just start reporting it as spam hoping it will go away. I do that all the time. I consider every list I didn't explicitly and intentionally subscribe to as spam and treat them accordingly. I wish I wouldn't have to do that but I find subscribing someone to a list when they thought they were just buying or creating an account for a product so unnervin…

These are discussion lists that people intentionally subscribed to (which require double confirmation). I'm not that dense.

I get hundreds of different discussion list mails I have not signed up to.

Re: Ask HN: Are you also getting extremely obvious spam bypassing Gmail's filters?

#258

Post by oefnak »

hda111 wrote: post #253
nikau wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reliable low maintenance solution is to get your own domain with a catch all mail service. Then for every email interaction with a 3rd party you make a unique address like amazondotcom3823@yourdomain.com. You can then just add rules for each incoming mail domain to send them to a junk folder, especially if it was was a one time transaction and subsequent emails are just going to be marketing junk. It also le…

This would be illegal in Germany where you must take notice of every email accepted by your email server. The junk folder doesn’t help because you would need to read through it nonetheless.

What do you mean? Why would it be harder to notice mails with a catch all in place?

Re: Ask HN: Are you also getting extremely obvious spam bypassing Gmail's filters?

#260

Post by samstave »

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #21

For the last year or so I've noticed an increasing amount of my legitimate professional interactions going into my "Promotions" tab in Gmail. The effect of which has been, after discovering a few mishaps of this sort, to now regularly and meticulously go through a massive pile of "Promotions" just to make sure I haven't missed something legitimately urgent or important. Prior to Google's classification errors produci…

There is no way to sort in gmail satisfactorily that I know? Like sort by subject, sender, etc... I can search, but I cant SORT.

Am I missing something obvious?

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