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We have a 99% email reputation, but Gmail disagrees

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

#201

Post by jherskovic »

I use FontAwesome. I bought FontAwesome subscriptions for my team. Love the product.

“We released new icons” (or a new version) is a message that has exactly zero information content for me. My workflow is “I need an icon for this,” so I open FA’s site and search. Done. Remembering that I searched for an icon that wasn’t there months ago, so that I’ll go check and see if it’s in the new release? Not going to happen.

No shade here. If you live, breathe, and devote your life to your product you’re going to be orders of magnitude more excited and attuned than the rest of us. Just… remember that we do not care to the level that you do. We buy it to be a tool in our toolkit, not the center of our lives.

If Ryobi sent me an email whenever they added a new battery-powered tool to their catalog, or upgraded a drill, I’d lose my shit. My time and attention are valuable to me. Don’t take them for granted.

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

#202

Post by Groxx »

ryandrake wrote: post #53
itopaloglu83 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I basically give companies 0 strikes anymore, and assume the "unsubscribe" link is at best, a dark pattern that only unsubscribes me from that 1 out of their 100 "channels," and at worst, confirms my E-mail address. "Report Spam" immediately.

If I didn't intentionally request non-transactional mail, it is spam. By definition.

Mark it as such.

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

#203

Post by kstrauser »

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 wrote about this recently: https://honeypot.net/2026/03/12/one-of-our-credit-card.html

We got political spam from one of our credit card issuers. It ended with this BS:

> ABOUT THIS EMAIL: This email was sent by [lender] to provide important account servicing information regarding your [lender] account. You may receive account servicing emails even if you have requested not to receive marketing offers by email for your [lender] account.

That outright lie had me ready to toss a brick through their front door. I haven’t been that righteously furious in ages.

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

#204

Post by staticshock »

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 do the same. Gmail gives me a single, standardized interface for opting out of emails: mark it as spam. All the various companies I've given my email to, on the other hand, give me different, either clunky or often outright broken interfaces for opting out. There's no direct financial incentive for them to invest in making ethical, robust opt-out systems.

However well meaning, collectively all those companies are still just a bunch of sociopaths. This might be a bit dark, but I think a reasonable real world analogy here is stalkers and restraining orders. A stalker isn't motivated to listen to you when you tell them to stop talking to you. That's why you get the restraining order.

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

#205

Post by proton_9 »

I got to know about this when i was setting up my email server, I have never sent emails to people i don't personally know and yet a few did land in spam and i had to ask them to mark it as not spam, that did help with improving the reputation, i also signed up on google postmaster also outlook as well i think. It's a actually a pretty easy thing to setup your own email server, i wrote about it, not the explicit details but the jist of it. https://tech.yaker.in/posts/self-hosted-e-mail-stack

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

#206

Post by drnick1 »

godelski wrote: post #106
itopaloglu83 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Intel did this to me with a job application... they just sent tons of promo shit even after I unsubscribed And people wonder why I make unique email addresses for every site and even multiple for some sites. It's for exactly this (and to see who's selling it). My only real recourse is to delete the email address. Thanks mozmail, and thanks bitwarden for integrating. But it's also dumb as shit that we have to do thing…

> And people wonder why I make unique email addresses for every site and even multiple for some sites.

This, right here, is the solution.

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

#208

Post by helsinkiandrew »

Larrikin wrote: post #45
itopaloglu83 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

> but that it can take up to 10 days to stop receiving emails when you unsubscribe

This is a really bad business practice, people will just mark your mail as spam and the likelyhood of other people seeing your mails will drop

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

#209

Post by gpvos »

EGreg wrote: post #188
Larrikin wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

I have done the opposite We had a million people enter their email over the last decade We haven’t messaged a single one. Now we plan to start sending out a newsletter. For many, they may have forgotten downloading the app, but they might still appreciate it. If not - they can u subscribe.

Don't do that, it will be disastrous for you.

Instead, send them a politely worded one-time announcement with an invitation to subscribe. Clearly mention that if they don't, this is the last mail they'll get from you, and keep that promise by deleting their address. You'll still get some pushback, but I think most people would find that acceptable.

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

#210

Post by gpvos »

echelon wrote: post #92
GroksBarnacles wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No company has ever gained users by forcing emails on users.

Every fashion brand on the planet reengages their customers this way and it works. I learned about the Analogue 64 from a marketing email, and I bought it. I see emails showing me new API features are available. Sometimes that's useful. I see Font Awesome has new fonts. Useful. I see a16z wrote an article that seems interesting to me. Useful. I filter out the 95% of stuff I don't want. I'm not seeing ads for clothing…

If a company sends me mail and I don't remember allowing them to, I will not trust them and will not use the unsubscribe button, because using it signals to the sender that my address is valid. I will mark as spam.

The onus for clearly communicating that you are going to mail me anything other than transaction updates is with the sender, not the receiver.

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