We have a 99% email reputation, but Gmail disagrees • Hacker News Board

Re: We have a 99% email reputation, but Gmail disagrees

#41

Post by itopaloglu83 » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 2:37 PM UTC

Youden wrote: post #7

How do you get email addresses? Do people freely and explicitly choose to sign up to your mailing list, or is it baggage that you're forcing on them without their consent? I notice that when I go to https://fontawesome.com/ and click "Start for Free", I'm asked for my email address. This isn't necessary for me to use the icons. I just need a page that tells me to add the necessary tags for cdnjs [0]. I think your pro…

I don’t know if this is true with Font Awesome, but more and more companies are spamming my inbox despite disabling any promotional emails in their settings.

So, I mark any unwanted email as spam in Gmail immediately, and even leave bad reviews.

Having my email address is not the same as having my consent. Stop trying to roofie us with malicious EULAs.

Re: We have a 99% email reputation, but Gmail disagrees

#42

Post by boomboomsubban » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

Does "report not spam" do anything? A local business will send me a receipt from a gmail address, and every time it's marked as spam despite it telling me future mail from this address will not be tagged as spam.

Re: We have a 99% email reputation, but Gmail disagrees

#43

Post by 0x3f » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

Brybry wrote: post #38

0x3f wrote: post #14

I'm a Font Awesome subscriber and yes, for the record, they spam me with annoying marketing and probably deserve their Gmail woes. They also use that silly dark pattern where they alternate sending out marketing emails from {David,Harry,Sam,Janet,every other person at the company}@fontawesome.com.

Do they have an easy-to-unsubscribe link in the marketing spam (cannot include logging into the user's account)? I have a generic name gmail account and people with my name frequently accidentally use my email address when signing up for stuff. When I get unsolicited mail which doesn't include a simple unsubscribe link then I just report as spam instead.

Each email has an unsubscribe link, but my problem is that I don't know if these separate senders represent different email lists. In the past, some companies who've used this pattern have accepted my unsubscribe request on one list, but kept emailing me from another, as if I'm supposed to work out their marketing email list hierarchy in order to stop them spamming me. So these days I don't bother, I just select all and mark as spam when I see it.

Re: We have a 99% email reputation, but Gmail disagrees

#44

Post by itopaloglu83 » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 2:41 PM UTC

Brybry wrote: post #38

0x3f wrote: post #14

I'm a Font Awesome subscriber and yes, for the record, they spam me with annoying marketing and probably deserve their Gmail woes. They also use that silly dark pattern where they alternate sending out marketing emails from {David,Harry,Sam,Janet,every other person at the company}@fontawesome.com.

Do they have an easy-to-unsubscribe link in the marketing spam (cannot include logging into the user's account)? I have a generic name gmail account and people with my name frequently accidentally use my email address when signing up for stuff. When I get unsolicited mail which doesn't include a simple unsubscribe link then I just report as spam instead.

I think most of them are spamming you and you’re being nice to attribute to mistakes.

Also, a lot of companies nowadays keep adding weird email topics that you need to constantly unsubscribe from.

If I signed up and turned off all subscriptions, then anything they send is marked as spam immediately. The lack of cost in sending email makes it easy for them to keep abusing all the time.

Re: We have a 99% email reputation, but Gmail disagrees

#45

Post by Larrikin » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

itopaloglu83 wrote: post #41

Youden wrote: post #7

How do you get email addresses? Do people freely and explicitly choose to sign up to your mailing list, or is it baggage that you're forcing on them without their consent? I notice that when I go to https://fontawesome.com/ and click "Start for Free", I'm asked for my email address. This isn't necessary for me to use the icons. I just need a page that tells me to add the necessary tags for cdnjs [0]. I think your pro…

I don’t know if this is true with Font Awesome, but more and more companies are spamming my inbox despite disabling any promotional emails in their settings. So, I mark any unwanted email as spam in Gmail immediately, and even leave bad reviews. Having my email address is not the same as having my consent. Stop trying to roofie us with malicious EULAs.

I remember there was a thread some years back with an article complaining that you get emails immediately on sign up, but that it can take up to 10 days to stop receiving emails when you unsubscribe.

One spammer said they could use the same servers for both but when you unsubscribe you have immediately signaled that you are now losing him money. So he uses the slowest cheapest part of the stack for removal. He will never fix it and doesn't care if you get some more spam after you unsubscribe since he has done the bare minimum.

If I get a single email after I've unsubscribed I go back in my inbox and mark every single email I ever received as spam.

Re: We have a 99% email reputation, but Gmail disagrees

#46

Post by jeffbee » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 2:48 PM UTC

meatmanek wrote: post #32

Pikamander2 wrote: post #5

Gmail's spam detection has some real headscratcher moments every now and then. Some days it'll mark legitimate transaction emails from major companies as spam even if you've been receiving emails from them for years. And then right afterwards it'll allow an obvious scam email with a PDF attachment from some random Gmail account that you've never contacted to go straight to your inbox.

Several years back when I applied for a Google internship, I missed some emails from my recruiter (soandso@google.com) because they went to my gmail spam folder.

There is a good reason for this. Part of Google maintains the principle that their own traffic has to go through the same classification process as all other mails. Other parts of Google can't stop themselves from sending spam from what are supposed to be gold-plated VIPs. Consequently, some of Google's own behaviors have poor reputation and some legitimate transactional messages are collateral damage.

Re: We have a 99% email reputation, but Gmail disagrees

#47

Post by antiloper » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 2:49 PM UTC

>Right before we hit send on our announcement emails for our new Build Awesome Kickstarter campaign... This is spam.

Re: We have a 99% email reputation, but Gmail disagrees

#48

Post by jeffbee » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 2:49 PM UTC

There is no such thing as a third party oracle of reputation. If Gmail users say your behavior is spammy, then it is spam by definition.

Re: We have a 99% email reputation, but Gmail disagrees

#49

Post by fnord77 » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 2:50 PM UTC

Brybry wrote: post #38

0x3f wrote: post #14

I'm a Font Awesome subscriber and yes, for the record, they spam me with annoying marketing and probably deserve their Gmail woes. They also use that silly dark pattern where they alternate sending out marketing emails from {David,Harry,Sam,Janet,every other person at the company}@fontawesome.com.

Do they have an easy-to-unsubscribe link in the marketing spam (cannot include logging into the user's account)? I have a generic name gmail account and people with my name frequently accidentally use my email address when signing up for stuff. When I get unsolicited mail which doesn't include a simple unsubscribe link then I just report as spam instead.

> Do they have an easy-to-unsubscribe link in the marketing spam

I've noticed a recent trend where unsubscribing actually does nothing

Re: We have a 99% email reputation, but Gmail disagrees

#50

Post by quickthrowman » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 2:51 PM UTC

If I did not explicitly opt-in to receiving emails, which I never do, I mark them as spam in Gmail. Stop sending unsolicited emails and you won’t be reported for spam, it’s pretty easy.