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Google seems to have broken email forwarding

jwz.org

11–20 of 193 posts

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#11
post #5

Obviously good email (deep in a conversation) being declared "spam" has been a problem with my business for some time also. I figure Google takes all email in a 2 step process (either intentional or accidental) 1: get a good fraction of the world on GMail 2: intermittently declare any non GMail mail spam ( greatly lowering the utility of non GMail). This isn't about any mass mailings or even mailing lists. This is ab…

Already downvoted below zero (about 2 seconds). I'll stand by what I said/implied: it is hard to co-exist with Google systems (and apparently also with pro-Google shills/apologists). I know this post violates HN standards, but I didn't think the parent did.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#12
post #5

Obviously good email (deep in a conversation) being declared "spam" has been a problem with my business for some time also. I figure Google takes all email in a 2 step process (either intentional or accidental) 1: get a good fraction of the world on GMail 2: intermittently declare any non GMail mail spam ( greatly lowering the utility of non GMail). This isn't about any mass mailings or even mailing lists. This is ab…

Having had delivery problems to gmail for years, I couldn't agree more.

However Yahoo are an order of magnitude worse when it comes to delivering email. If they decide you aren't their friend, they send back an error code with a URL in it to go and visit and identify yourself via a web form that is reviewed rarely by some humans. Then if you fuck that form up or if they don't like you, blackholed for 6 months and they stick their fingers in their ears. Try telling a yahoo user about this as well and it's "meh".

Email is broken unless you have a small provider or DIY and it's fucking frustrating.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#13
post #5

Obviously good email (deep in a conversation) being declared "spam" has been a problem with my business for some time also. I figure Google takes all email in a 2 step process (either intentional or accidental) 1: get a good fraction of the world on GMail 2: intermittently declare any non GMail mail spam ( greatly lowering the utility of non GMail). This isn't about any mass mailings or even mailing lists. This is ab…

Agree. It is time to start boycotting Google ecosystem until it is too late. It is definitely turning into a corporation of evil. I enjoy their search but definitely despise how they spread their proprietary tentacles everywhere. Sad.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#15
post #11
post #5

Obviously good email (deep in a conversation) being declared "spam" has been a problem with my business for some time also. I figure Google takes all email in a 2 step process (either intentional or accidental) 1: get a good fraction of the world on GMail 2: intermittently declare any non GMail mail spam ( greatly lowering the utility of non GMail). This isn't about any mass mailings or even mailing lists. This is ab…

Already downvoted below zero (about 2 seconds). I'll stand by what I said/implied: it is hard to co-exist with Google systems (and apparently also with pro-Google shills/apologists). I know this post violates HN standards, but I didn't think the parent did.

I think its just that everyone who doesn't run a mail server hasn't had to deal with this shit so finds it hard to believe that their precious email providers are being a pain in the butt.

That is until you get a court summons after an invoice was sent several times and never got there because some fuckwit mail policy just blackholed it. This stuff does happen and when it does its costly.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#17
It's been years since I last did some serious email hosting, but it looks like the SPF rule is the problem.

Google is forwarding mail for dnalounge.com but the SPF rule doesn't allow Google's SMTP servers to do that: "v=spf1 a mx ptr ~all". That could explain why the email gets in the spam box; failing SFP should increase the "spam score".

Besides I think SOFTFAIL shouldn't be used in production; and I also doubt that Google should be taking seriously a SOFTFAIL anyway; so please take this comment with a pinch of salt.

SPF is easy to get wrong, and it always backfires at you ;)

EDIT: seems that I may be right, according to this comment http://www.jwz.org/blog/2015/03/google-seems-to-have-broken-...

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#18
post #5

Obviously good email (deep in a conversation) being declared "spam" has been a problem with my business for some time also. I figure Google takes all email in a 2 step process (either intentional or accidental) 1: get a good fraction of the world on GMail 2: intermittently declare any non GMail mail spam ( greatly lowering the utility of non GMail). This isn't about any mass mailings or even mailing lists. This is ab…

I don't think it's malicious. Running mail servers and filtering spam is not easy.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#19
post #7

Google has always had issues with legitimate e-mail the spambox, but then again, I have yet to see a spam filter with no false positives. Google just errors a lot more on the side of classifying email as spam compared to most email services (more false positives, but less spam in the inbox). What makes this even more annoying is that they hide the spam folder so that users don't even know that it exists anymore. I al…

Gmail is awful regarding false positives. People discount it because: a) it's a free service; b) false negatives are more frequent and thus more annoying.

What is difficult in spam classification is having no false negatives and no false positives. Any decent CS graduate can create a spam classification system with no false negatives given the leeway to introduce false positives. That's what Gmail did.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#20
post #11
post #5

Obviously good email (deep in a conversation) being declared "spam" has been a problem with my business for some time also. I figure Google takes all email in a 2 step process (either intentional or accidental) 1: get a good fraction of the world on GMail 2: intermittently declare any non GMail mail spam ( greatly lowering the utility of non GMail). This isn't about any mass mailings or even mailing lists. This is ab…

Already downvoted below zero (about 2 seconds). I'll stand by what I said/implied: it is hard to co-exist with Google systems (and apparently also with pro-Google shills/apologists). I know this post violates HN standards, but I didn't think the parent did.

Personally speaking I downvoted your comment because I often downvote things that smack of conspiracy thinking - never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.

Another issue I have with your argument - I don't believe Gmail has the market share to make such a fiendish strategy viable.

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