Gmail and the bulk folder

Earlier this week Gmail announced they were providing reasons for why they delivered a particular mail to the bulk folder. I’m sure a lot of senders are rejoicing over the clear feedback. After all this is exactly what they’ve been asking for “tell us why you’re filtering our mail and we’ll fix it.”
I am not sure, however, that this is going to help the majority of senders seeing mail going to the bulk folder. On the Gmail support pages, they list a number of the explanations they’re be providing.

  • Phishing scams
  • Messages from an unconfirmed sender
  • Messages you sent to Spam
  • Similarity to suspicious messages
  • Administrator-set policies

Similarity to suspicious messages is a polite way of saying “this mail looks like spam.” Gmail does provide a few more details for this classification.

Gmail uses automated spam detection systems to analyze patterns and predict what types of messages are fraudulent or potentially harmful. Here are just a few of the things our system considers when marking a message as spam:

  • Content that’s usually associated with spam such as mature content and “get rich quick” schemes
  • Messages that falsely appear to be a “bounced message” response (a system-generated email that you might automatically get after sending a message that can’t be delivered such as a message sent to an invalid email address)
  • Messages sent from accounts or IP addresses that have sent other spam messages
  • Behavior of other Gmail users, such as many people reporting spam from a particular sender
  • Similarity to other spam or phishing messages based on a combination of things like subject matter, elements like spelling and formatting, and suspicious attachments
  • A difference between your Gmail language preference and the language used in the message

Hopefully this will help senders diagnose the reasons for bulk foldering at Gmail. Given how tight their filters have gotten over the last 6 months, it’s certainly something more and more of us have to deal with.

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Reading some of the articles on the case, though, I’m less worried. This isn’t a blogger making some statements. Instead, Ms. Cox acted more like a stalker and harasser than a reporter. The judge even concluded that had she been granted protection as a journalist it was unlikely she could prevail as there was little factual basis for her statements.
Others have done better summaries of the case and the effect and I encourage everyone to read them.
Seattle Weekly
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Ars Technica
Forbes

I also discourage folks from applying this ruling to all bloggers. It’s not clear she was doing anything journalistic. I did find it interesting that some of her techniques to ruin the lawyer’s search results were defined as Search Engine Optimization. I’ve long thought SEO was akin to spam: say something often enough in enough places and you start to dominate the conversation. Not because you have anything useful to say, but because no one can get an idea in otherwise.

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MAAWG is coming up and lots of us are working on documents, and presentations. One of the recent discussions is what kind of security recommendations, if any, should we be making. I posted a list of things including “Don’t browse the web with a machine running Windows.”
Another participant told me he thought my recommendation to not use a windows machine to browse the web was over the top and paranoid. It may be, but drive by malware attacks are increasing. Visiting big sites may not be enough to protect you, as hackers are compromising sites and installing malware to infect visitors to those sites. Some ad networks have also been used to spread malware.
Criminals have even figured out how to install malware on a machine from email, without the recipient having to click or open attachments.
Avoiding the internet from a machine running Windows is a security recommendation I don’t expect many people to follow, but I do not think security and anti-virus software is enough to protect people from all of the exploits out there.
Of course, there are a lot of reasons that one might be forced to use a particular browser or operating system. For instance, I was on the phone with my bank just today to ask if they supported Safari. They say they do, but there are some things that just don’t work. The customer service rep said that they recommend Internet Explorer to all their users. She then suggested I switch browsers. No thanks, I’ll deal with the broken website.
Compromises are a major threat, and criminals are spending a lot of time and money on creating ways to get past current security. No longer is “not clicking on malware” enough to protect users. When a security clearinghouse is compromised and used as a vector for a targeted attack against Google, none of us are safe. When a security company is compromised, none of us are safe.
I realize my recommendation to avoid browsing the web on a Windows based machine is more wishful thinking than practical. I also know that other browsers and operating systems will be targeted if enough people move away from currently vulnerable operating systems. And I know that a simple, offhand suggestion won’t fix the problem.
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Less can be more and more can be more

The Wall Street Journal reports that some large retailers are scaling back their email marketing. Benefits of sending less mail include higher open rates, lower unsubscribe rates and an increase in sales.

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