Google wants to make Gmail inboxes free of spam, announcing stricter requirements that apply to senders of bulk email. The measures will go into effect in February 2024.
According to the tech giant, Google is trying to use AI technology to protect its Gmail users from spam and other unwanted e-mail, but this is still not enough. The tech giant says it feels the rules are necessary as it sees upcoming challenges, although it does not further explain which challenges would be involved. It’s a tough nut to crack, as malicious senders can still hide among the many legitimate e-mail sent by other large senders.
New requirements for bulk mail
Starting in February 2024, new requirements will therefore be imposed on senders of bulk e-mail to Gmail users. More specifically, these include senders who send more than 5,000 emails daily to Gmail addresses. The tightened requirements build on previous measures. In those, senders of large volumes of e-mail to Gmail addresses will be required to provide some form of authentication that verifies that they really are the sender.
Starting next year, large senders will be required to implement stringent authentication following a set of well-documented best practices from the tech giant. In addition, these senders will soon have to offer their recipients the ability to unsubscribe with a single click, and these unsubscribe requests must be processed within two days. Finally, senders must stay below a certain spam rate. This means that if enough Gmail users mark emails from the sender as spam, the sender will no longer have access to Gmail inboxes at all. According to Google, this is an “industry first.
Consultation with other providers
Furthermore, Google is in discussions with other providers of (free) e-mail services to implement the same standards. Meanwhile, Yahoo is said to have already agreed, TechCrunch reports.
According to Google, most bulk senders already meet the stricter requirements. In addition, the tech giant is offering assistance in implementing the new sending requirements before they take effect in 2024.
Also read: Google will discontinue the HTML version of Gmail by early 2024
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