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Google Is Eating Our Mail

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Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#21

Post by dralley »

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…

They don't even have to be doing it deliberately; as you say, the lack of incentives to fix such issues will cause a gradual evolution in that direction.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#22

Post by redm »

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 relates to email, this is why platforms like Sendgrid got so popular, they manage the relationship with Google and others for you.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#23

Post by reaperducer »

The last time a company screwed with e-mail at scale was Earthlink.

Remember for a couple of years, every time you'd send a message to someone at Earthlink, you'd get an automated rely demanding that you verify yourself before the message would go through?

Now I can't remember the last time I saw an @earthlink.* e-mail address.

Google has apparently learned from that and put the "error" in the 550 messages, where they can't be seen by the end user, and lead to non-helpful resolutions for sysadmins.

The result is that the blame for missing messages goes to the sender, not to the recipient's email service.

If Gmail at least notified the sender that there was a problem, then a pattern of responsibility could be established. But this is just another dark pattern.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#24

Post by linuxftw »

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…

Define 'people'. We're already there IMO. The kids today don't have any particular understanding of what the internet is and how it works. They view it through walled gardens via the app store.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#25

Post by reaperducer »

upofadown wrote: post #15
maxaf wrote: post #9

> I'm sure there is no malicious intent behind this How can anyone be sure of this? This is only one of Google’s practices that seems to follow a pervasive pattern of eroding open internet standards while presenting Google’s own proprietary implementation as somehow superior. Eventually, the open standard loses all meaning because the most popular implementation does not actually adhere to it. Meanwhile, Google reaps…

Indifference that causes a business problem turns into not-indifference. Indifference that does not cause a business problem remains indifference. No one ever calls a meeting. There is a lot of evil done in the world that comes from this simple and straightforward principle. You don't have to have an evil plan to end up doing evil. Personally I see this as just more Google incompetence. Gmail has just become bad. If…

Personally I see this as just more Google incompetence. Gmail has just become bad. If you want to get all your mail you have to use something else.

It's like we're going back to the days when each e-mail service only trusted messages from its own users, and if you wanted messages to go to another network, you had to use an e-mail gateway.

Can I get my ...!killer!jolnet bang path back?

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#26

Post by dazc »

pettycashstash2 wrote: post #2

Add another perspective to this. Once I updated my phone, and google would not accept new google Authenticator codes after set up. Locked out of 15 years of email.

I updated my phone recently and google authenticated directly from my phone number.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#27

Post by macspoofing »

Leace wrote: post #20
macspoofing wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even after all that, there's some chance that an email from my server will be marked as insecure/spam Don't I know it. This happened to us but not with Google. We use Exchange Online (Office365) and have DKIM, SPF headers configured. At some point our emails stopped being received by bell and cox emails addresses ... sporadically but sometimes for days at a time. It turned out that the spam filter provider (used by…

To be honest I don't like this confidentiality notes and from what I've read (not a lawyer) they don't have any practical effect either.

It's there, it wasn't my call to put it in.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#28

Post by reaperducer »

Leace wrote: post #20
macspoofing wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even after all that, there's some chance that an email from my server will be marked as insecure/spam Don't I know it. This happened to us but not with Google. We use Exchange Online (Office365) and have DKIM, SPF headers configured. At some point our emails stopped being received by bell and cox emails addresses ... sporadically but sometimes for days at a time. It turned out that the spam filter provider (used by…

To be honest I don't like this confidentiality notes and from what I've read (not a lawyer) they don't have any practical effect either.

I always giggle when I see those.

Especially the part about how "if you are not the intended recipient, you are ordered to destroy all copies of this message."

It's my computer. You sent the bad message. You're in no position to "order" me to do anything.

I suspect they're mandated by self-important Lower Middle Manager of the Year Award nominees, not actual legal departments. The sort of people who never do anything but push papers around, yet put a bunch of meaningless initials after their name in e-mail signatures because they went to a conference.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#29

Post by cptskippy »

dralley wrote: post #21
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…

They don't even have to be doing it deliberately; as you say, the lack of incentives to fix such issues will cause a gradual evolution in that direction.

I feel like as they leave more and more up to the algorithms, we suffer. I've been having this ever increasing in frequency issue where Gmail Search just doesn't working. Not that it doesn't return search results but rather that it returns what I know to be incorrect results.

I have an email with some account information that I access a couple times a year at most but will consistently need at least once a year. Just infrequently enough that I can't remember the exact contents.

I know exactly what the subject line of the email is and it's a suggested search query in Gmail but about 2 years ago Gmail just stopped being able to find it. I can navigate to the email via label or star just fine but I can no longer search for it.

Is it because it's an 8 year old email? idk what the reasoning is but Gmail as deemed it irrelevant and stopped returning it as a search result. This isn't a platform issue either, it happens in App, or browser on multiple devices.

Re: Google Is Eating Our Mail

#30

Post by rc_mob »

sneak wrote: post #11

I have run a private mailserver for over 20 years, and I have the same problem. There's no telling what Google will let through. I have a second account at a medium-sized email provider, basically paying them for access to the email deliverability cartel.

We need a new message protocol
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