81–90 of 720 posts
Lest anyone think Gmail is less susceptible to problems because of the sheer volume of mail they handle (so any problem gets a lot of 'eyes' on it), they had an amusing and long-standing bug that meant any email containing a link to any domain name starting with "0x" automatically went to spam. You could literally have two long standing, legitimately used accounts send an email to each other containing a link to a UR…
> 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…
More generally, indifference to small "trivial" problems eventually normalizes the deviant behavior[1]. Evil behavior doesn't happen in one step, it's end result of regularly being indifferent to "minor" problems[2].
For a very good explanation of why this happens, I recommend Richard Cook's excellent talk, "Resilience In Complex Adaptive Systems"[3].
[1] https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_...
[2] https://blog.aopa.org/aopa/2015/12/07/the-normalization-of-d...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Best case scenario, someone listens and destroys the message.
Worst case scenario, the company is no worse off than if they hadn't included the disclaimer.
Makes sense from my perspective.
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…
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 wonder. Google as a company is famously focused on machine learning through automated analytics and bare minimum of human contact It should be noted that ultimately these efforts to "learn" result in ML, AI whatever pointed AT you, not working for you.
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…
>I wonder. Google as a company is famously focused on machine learning through automated analytics and bare minimum of human contact It should be noted that ultimately these efforts to "learn" result in ML, AI whatever pointed AT you, not working for you.
Well of course - don't trust the client is a rule for a reason. I get the spirit and how it can suck but it seems to be for a reason. Anything which blindly works for "you" can be abused by other "you"s like spammers and other bad actors.
If it is "reasonable" (trying to find a definition here) can only be determined by humans.... provided they care or understand it.
I always quote this one but I really like it:
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune
I would argue that it is clear that to some extent, Google does not care about the end results.
A while back I'd explored trying to own my data, especially with email, and found that the efforts involved in hosting your own email server were tantamount to a full-time job. The amount of fighting you have to do to stay on everyone's whitelists is absurd.
There's a good middlespace here, where you pay someone for email service who isn't an adtech company. Sure, you don't host it yourself, but someone who's not selling you is and you're their actual customer. (I pay FastMail, personally.)
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,…