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Google Is Eating Our Mail

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Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#101

Post by dmitryminkovsky »

redm wrote: post #22
reaperducer wrote: post #8

Google has no incentive to fix these kinds of problems. It's big enough that when someone complains that a message sent wasn't received, the intended recipient will say, "I never have problems with my Gmail account. It must be you." And the sender has to switch to Gmail to reliably communicate with the outside world. I wish this was just paranoia, but we've seen multiple discussions on HN about Google programs and po…

I wholly agree with your statement. I would add that, sadly, its like this with most things Google: 1) vague descriptions of the problem, 2) impossible to get support or talk to anyone, 3) severe consequences (because of the ubiquity of Google’s platforms i.e. search, Gmail, Android, Chrome). Anyone who’s had a safe browsing problem, an App Store issue, or, heaven forbid, an AdSense issue will attest. As far as it re…

Google Ads support is incredible. I’ve been shocked. You can tell where their real business is. You call and you get a competent human in less than a few minutes.

Also, Google email deliverability is good, inbound and outbound. I’ve been running an email service and have had no problems with them, unlike Hotmail/Outlook.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#102

Post by techsupporter »

surgi wrote: post #64

Am I the only one here experiencing that GMail does reasonably good job in filtering out the spam, while I have to visit the Spam folder approximately once a week, just to randomly correct a mail or 2 a month? (not a Google employee)

That’s not the issue, though. The issue is that Gmail are too zealous in blocking and wind up blocking legitimate email with no way for the sender to debug what happened. From your perspective, nothing happened because how do you prove you never got an email you never knew was sent to you?

The people having problems here are non-Gmail senders sending email to Gmail recipients.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#103

Post by Tepix »

reaperducer wrote: post #8

Google has no incentive to fix these kinds of problems. It's big enough that when someone complains that a message sent wasn't received, the intended recipient will say, "I never have problems with my Gmail account. It must be you." And the sender has to switch to Gmail to reliably communicate with the outside world. I wish this was just paranoia, but we've seen multiple discussions on HN about Google programs and po…

The right response to this problem - for gmail users - would be to switch to a different email provider. After all, if you are not receiving important mails because Google decides to block them for inexplicable reasons, you are getting an inferior, faulty service.

(For me gmail is inferior regardless as my privacy is violated)

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#104

Post by sergiosgc »

awinder wrote: post #57
bachmeier wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rule #1 if you're applying for jobs or graduate school - Don't use gmail for your email address. Source: Led a hiring committee this year. Interview invitations and job offers went straight to the junk mail folder. Also serve as Director of Graduate Studies. Admissions and funding offers, as well as general inquiries about availability, all went straight to the junk mail folder. We're not going to change our email se…

This may be a fair sentiment for an educational institution (you're not directly making money from email sending / hopefully admissions marketing doesn't have this problem), but as a candidate I'd be extremely concerned if a company I was going to work with A) couldn't deliver to gmail and B) held the view that it was everyone else's problem. As it is you're statistically leaving half the candidate pool at the door,…

Gmail's spam filters always err on the false positive side. It's always been like that. Add the opaque nature of google operations, and you can't in good faith place the deliverability burden on third parties. It's like trying to hit bullseye in darts in pitch black darkness.

Best to assume gmail is flawed, which it is, as the parent poster did. At some point Google will realize the image problem and act.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#105

Post by lucb1e »

Can confirm, my server is also not accepted by google for years now when mailing someone with a business account. I'm not going to bother fixing Google's problems and support the behaviour, though, I'll just contact them through other means and let them know their email provider is blocking mail addressed to them.

At work we use sendgrid because of this. Have to trust a centralised third party to send out api keys. It's frustrating.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#106

Post by bluGill »

luckylion wrote: post #53
AJ007 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If enough expected messages don’t show up, users are going to start thinking gmail is broken. The problem for Google is that they are not the only trusted brand consumers interact with. I’ve seen a lot of stuff start ending up in spam that shouldn’t be there. If enough password resets, customer service responses, and order confirmations aren’t delivered, it looks like Google has a problem. If it doesn’t even make it…

> If enough expected messages don’t show up, users are going to start thinking gmail is broken. I doubt that. They will rather consider that the people (or their IT) that send them emails made a mistake. It's Google after all.

If several different IT departments all start sending that message though, people start to think maybe google has lost it...

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#107

Post by xuki »

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #101
redm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wholly agree with your statement. I would add that, sadly, its like this with most things Google: 1) vague descriptions of the problem, 2) impossible to get support or talk to anyone, 3) severe consequences (because of the ubiquity of Google’s platforms i.e. search, Gmail, Android, Chrome). Anyone who’s had a safe browsing problem, an App Store issue, or, heaven forbid, an AdSense issue will attest. As far as it re…

Google Ads support is incredible. I’ve been shocked. You can tell where their real business is. You call and you get a competent human in less than a few minutes. Also, Google email deliverability is good, inbound and outbound. I’ve been running an email service and have had no problems with them, unlike Hotmail/Outlook.

Are you spending money on Adwords or receiving money from AdSense? I have heard many horror stories from Adsense but nothing from Adwords.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#108

Post by sergiosgc »

mattkrause wrote: post #75
bachmeier wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rule #1 if you're applying for jobs or graduate school - Don't use gmail for your email address. Source: Led a hiring committee this year. Interview invitations and job offers went straight to the junk mail folder. Also serve as Director of Graduate Studies. Admissions and funding offers, as well as general inquiries about availability, all went straight to the junk mail folder. We're not going to change our email se…

I think you’ve got to meet people halfway here. While’s gmail’s filtering is obviously neither your responsibility nor under your control, you also can’t really fault people for using one of the most popular email services on the planet. I would hope that your department follows up some other way (you surely have a phone number!). Searches are crazy time consuming and expensive, and grad student recruitment isn’t exa…

> While’s gmail’s filtering is obviously neither your responsibility nor under your control, you also can’t really fault people for using one of the most popular email services on the planet.

Why not? Popularity does not imply quality. If it is a poor service, you can (and should) fault people for using it.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#109

Post by sergiosgc »

pjc50 wrote: post #84
bachmeier wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rule #1 if you're applying for jobs or graduate school - Don't use gmail for your email address. Source: Led a hiring committee this year. Interview invitations and job offers went straight to the junk mail folder. Also serve as Director of Graduate Studies. Admissions and funding offers, as well as general inquiries about availability, all went straight to the junk mail folder. We're not going to change our email se…

"Our outbound email is misconfigured, but this is everyone else's problem"?

It's not that simple. You can be perfectly configured and fail to deliver to gmail.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#110

Post by lucb1e »

brlewis wrote: post #89
awinder wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be a fair sentiment for an educational institution (you're not directly making money from email sending / hopefully admissions marketing doesn't have this problem), but as a candidate I'd be extremely concerned if a company I was going to work with A) couldn't deliver to gmail and B) held the view that it was everyone else's problem. As it is you're statistically leaving half the candidate pool at the door,…

In the past year or so, pulling non-spam out of my gmail spam folder has become routine. Previously it was very rare that legitimate mail ended up in my spam folder, including personal mail from my father from an email address he's been using for decades. A biz that call's gmail's problem gmail's problem is not a terrible smell.

Only the past year? I've been having this problem since for as long as I've tried sending mail to google.
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