31 Dec
2020
31 Dec
'20
7:43 p.m.
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
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?
--
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http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com *
ckaiser at floodgap.com
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