Emails going to spam folder in gmail

Michael Brutman mbbrutman at brutman.com
Thu Dec 31 21:43:12 CST 2020


Disclaimer: I don't speak for Google ...

The thread shows a lot of Google bashing.  Insinuating that Google makes it
difficult so that people follow the path of least resistance is part of
that.

For years I had a non-Google backed email system and I did not have
problems with sending or receiving from Gmail.  I helped set up the Google
Apps setup that VCFed.org is using, and we're not noticing any problems
there or having actional reports of problems with email.  I can't speculate
what is going on with individual problems, but generally I believe with
enough digging those problems can be understood and solved.

Large corporations (Google included) are basically a scaling problem,
especially when it comes to customer service.  I think that's pretty
obvious, and stories about YouTube problems and account access are legion.
I don't have a solution that can be applied to the problems on this
thread.  My purpose in posting was to point out that this probably isn't a
matter of market share or people forgetting not to be evil; it's a
technical problem.  Getting the configs right is the first step.
Blacklists are also a problem, and clearly sometimes the filters being
applied are wrong.  We try to find and fix these things as they are brought
to our attention.

It took me less than a minute of searching to find this:
https://support.google.com/mail/contact/bulk_send_new

That's the form to contact the Gmail team for getting help with debugging
your mail being marked as spam/phishing attempts, you get SMTP temp-fails
or rejects, or other problems.  (The search term was "problems sending
email to gmail accounts" - go to the first link, follow the workflow, and
assuming all of the preliminary answers to the questions are "I didn't do
anything wrong" then you'll get a link to that contact form.)


Mike


On Thu, Dec 31, 2020 at 6:23 PM Cameron Kaiser via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:

> > It seems easier to bash Google than it is to debug the actual problems.
>
> I think this is an unfair characterization of the frustrations people have
> voiced. I agree individual engineers aren't out to get people with private
> mail servers, but:
>
> > There are a lot of factors that
> > need to be considered besides DKIM and SPF.  Google has heuristics which
> > are probably well justified with data, and it works for the vast majority
> > of people.
>
> Stuff like the link you gave
>
> > https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126
>
> aren't the problem. The problem is when you're doing all of that, and it
> doesn't work (i.e., you're not part of this "vast majority"). I don't find
> it reasonable to assume everyone who's voiced frustration with Gmail isn't
> doing everything in that list already. When you get to that point, after
> all
> that sweat and work, there's no one to communicate with to find out which
> part of that black box of heuristics is still getting its nose out of
> joint,
> and it doesn't serve Google's interest to put any bodies towards that sort
> of communication because it costs money and it's not their problem.
>
> Plus, well, the more people who need to communicate with a Gmail user, the
> path of least resistance is ... Gmail. That works out pretty well for
> Google.
> From your view in the company, do you see an incentive on their end to work
> with folks like us?
>
> --
> ------------------------------------ personal:
> http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
>   Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com *
> ckaiser at floodgap.com
> -- Sleep, delicious and profound, the very counterfeit of death. -- Homer
> -----
>


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