Gmail Rulebook Updated: Google Sets Requirements for Mass Email Users

Google is rolling out some fresh regulations to thwart spammers exploiting Gmail for their grand-scale promotions. They’ve laid down a new set of criteria for those firing off more than 5,000 Gmail messages a day, placing a greater emphasis on verification and controlling who the emails are sent to.

For the law-abiding senders among us, this should be a walk in the park. However, if you happen to be one of those using Gmail for your email blitzes, you might want to perk up those ears for the lowdown.

Commencing February 2024, Gmail is going to demand that all those big-time senders (again, over 5k emails per day) do the following:

• Authenticate their email – Google reckons many senders are still a mystery to recipients, so they’re rolling out a new rule: all bulk senders must authenticate their emails by activating DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). This adds an extra layer of verification, ensuring recipients can easily distinguish the genuine ones. Google also points out that senders with DKIM on board encounter way fewer rejections from email filters.
• Facilitate easy unsubscription – We’ve all been annoyed by those email hucksters who play hide-and-seek with the “unsubscribe” option, making it a challenge to kick them out of your inbox. From February, Google is putting its foot down – all hefty senders must give Gmail recipients a one-click option to opt out of commercial emails, and they’ve got to process unsubscription requests within two days.
• Confirm they’re sending wanted email – Lastly, Google is going to enforce a spam rate threshold for all mass senders. This is to ensure Gmail inboxes aren’t flooded with undesired messages. Google claims this is an industry first, intended to swiftly identify and cut off spam senders. While most of these rules are pretty straightforward, the spam rate threshold might make some jittery, especially those with iffy response rates. Competitors could try using this as a trick to disrupt email activity by signing up for an email list and marking it as spam to ding their score. But fear not, Google has likely taken this into account and presumably has detection systems ready to foil any manipulation of these new thresholds.

 

This move by Google is a commendable initiative that should help curb email spam, affecting pretty much every Gmail user in some way. Perhaps, it’s a stride towards saving us all time by sieving out more rubbish and giving users the power to exile the same from their inbox.