What you need to know
- Google will start implementing new requirements for bulk senders to Gmail addresses in February 2024.
- Those who send more than 5,000 messages to Gmail users will need to authenticate their emails in accordance with Google's best practices.
- Bulk senders should also include a one-click unsubscribe button in their emails and must stay under a certain spam rate threshold.
Google is giving spam emails a beatdown, with new rules for bulk senders in Gmail in hopes of improving security and making it easier for users to unsubscribe from unwanted emails.
Beginning in February 2024, all bulk senders who blast more than 5,000 emails to Gmail users in a day will need to follow stricter rules designed to reduce spam in your inbox. Neil Kumaran, Group Product Manager for Gmail Security & Trust, wrote in a blog post that attackers can easily hide in email blasts because bulk senders "don’t appropriately secure and configure their systems."
One solution is to focus on email validation, ensuring that the senders are who they claim to be. This means bulk senders will need to follow Google’s best practices for keeping messages from being marked as spam. The goal is to "close loopholes exploited by attackers that threaten everyone who uses email."
Bulk senders will also need to give Gmail users a one-click option to unsubscribe from commercial emails. This comes in handy for people who want to get rid of unwanted messages without having to go through a lot of hassle, which is currently the case with many marketing emails. Bulk senders will also have to process unsubscribe requests within two days.
Finally, Google is putting bulk senders on notice with a new spam rate threshold to help make our inboxes a much nicer place to be. This means that if the spam rate is too high for a certain sender, they will get the boot.
This is a big deal because it's the first time that a major email provider has set a clear spam rate threshold for bulk senders, signaling that Google is serious about reducing the amount of spam in our inboxes. And it's about time, seeing as spam is a huge problem. According to Statista, it's estimated that over 45 percent of e-mail traffic in December 2022 was spam.
