4 ms·

That's a rather glib and obtuse way to put it. I'm an Amazon customer. If Amazon can't reach my gmail address because Google started using some third party fil

That's a rather glib and obtuse way to put it. I'm an Amazon customer. If Amazon can't reach my gmail address because Google started using some third party filtering service, what exactly would you expect me to do? Even if I had the ability, I certainly don't have the inclination to spend time resolving this issue. I'll go so far as to mark something "not spam", but that's about it. The cost to me of not hearing from Amazon is virtually zero. The cost to Amazon of not being able to communicate with all its customers that use gmail is huge. It's an Amazon problem, not a customer problem. But GP did figure out what the problem was and took steps to resolve it without involving lawyers before finally issuing the C&D and getting an injunction.

lsc 11y ago
> That's a rather glib and obtuse way to put it. Glib, yes. Obtuse? less so. >I'm an Amazon customer. If Amazon can't reach my gmail address because Google started using some third party filtering service, what exactly would you expect me to do? If your free email address doesn't receive mail you want, I expect you might move to a different mail service. I think that if you want anything but automated support out of a free service, you are expecting far too much. Because you still seem to think sticking with your free email provider is the only reasonable course of action, I can only assume that said free provider is meeting your needs; that the automated support is good enough and that you don't mind the odd false positive. Sure, if you want service, you are going to have to pay a few dollars, but there are plenty of spamfiltering services that are fairly cheap that do have a real person who will fix it if you tell them you aren't getting legitimate mail. In reality, users consider "legitimate" newsletters to be spam... spending a bunch of time digging through the "legitimate sender" settings to get the mail you want and not the "legitimate newsletters" is often so much work that users just mark the newsletters as spam, and hope their provider will figure it out. Of course, this works really badly when it comes to reputation systems, as the billing stuff and the "newsletters" often come from the same server. (really, if you must send "newsletters" in addition to your billing, you should do them from a different mailserver and different email address.)
- berkay 11y ago
  You may be right in theory but way off in practice. MS for example accepts the emails and dumps them. It does not even make it to users' spam folders. So they don't know and we don't know. We only send emails that customers pay us to receive yet email no longer works. This is not how internet supposed to work. Spam is a major problem and as it is often the case the defensive measures cause just as much, if not more, problems.
  - lsc 11y ago
    >Spam is a major problem and as it is often the case the defensive measures cause just as much, if not more, problems. more problems for people who send bulk email, sure... the senders of bulk email vastly overestimate how much of a problem that is for end users.
lsc 11y ago
>The cost to me of not hearing from Amazon is virtually zero. The cost to Amazon of not being able to communicate with all its customers that use gmail is huge. It's an Amazon problem, not a customer problem. And... this is exactly the point. If the filtering company works for the end user, and the end-user doesn't want the mail (or at least doesn't care if it doesn't get delivered) - then the filtering company should block it. My point here is that you don't have a fundamental right to my attention. If I'm paying someone to sort my messages for me, and they throw out a message that is important to you, but that I don't really want to see... as far as I am concerned, the filtering company has done it's job. (obviously, if I want that email, it's another matter entirely - see my other response.)
unclebucknasty 11y ago
Exactly. I would add though that it can be a customer problem too. For instance, when customers order from Amazon, they expect an order confirmation, and generally find it helpful. Likewise, if customers need to reset passwords, etc. In fact, we learned of the problem when customers suddenly began to complain that they weren't receiving their password reset emails from us.

lsc 11y ago

> That's a rather glib and obtuse way to put it. Glib, yes. Obtuse? less so. >I'm an Amazon customer. If Amazon can't reach my gmail address because Google started using some third party filtering service, what exactly would you expect me to do? If your free email address doesn't receive mail you want, I expect you might move to a different mail service. I think that if you want anything but automated support out of a free service, you are expecting far too much. Because you still seem to think sticking with your free email provider is the only reasonable course of action, I can only assume that said free provider is meeting your needs; that the automated support is good enough and that you don't mind the odd false positive. Sure, if you want service, you are going to have to pay a few dollars, but there are plenty of spamfiltering services that are fairly cheap that do have a real person who will fix it if you tell them you aren't getting legitimate mail. In reality, users consider "legitimate" newsletters to be spam... spending a bunch of time digging through the "legitimate sender" settings to get the mail you want and not the "legitimate newsletters" is often so much work that users just mark the newsletters as spam, and hope their provider will figure it out. Of course, this works really badly when it comes to reputation systems, as the billing stuff and the "newsletters" often come from the same server. (really, if you must send "newsletters" in addition to your billing, you should do them from a different mailserver and different email address.)

berkay 11y ago
You may be right in theory but way off in practice. MS for example accepts the emails and dumps them. It does not even make it to users' spam folders. So they don't know and we don't know. We only send emails that customers pay us to receive yet email no longer works. This is not how internet supposed to work. Spam is a major problem and as it is often the case the defensive measures cause just as much, if not more, problems.
- lsc 11y ago
  >Spam is a major problem and as it is often the case the defensive measures cause just as much, if not more, problems. more problems for people who send bulk email, sure... the senders of bulk email vastly overestimate how much of a problem that is for end users.

lsc 11y ago

>The cost to me of not hearing from Amazon is virtually zero. The cost to Amazon of not being able to communicate with all its customers that use gmail is huge. It's an Amazon problem, not a customer problem. And... this is exactly the point. If the filtering company works for the end user, and the end-user doesn't want the mail (or at least doesn't care if it doesn't get delivered) - then the filtering company should block it. My point here is that you don't have a fundamental right to my attention. If I'm paying someone to sort my messages for me, and they throw out a message that is important to you, but that I don't really want to see... as far as I am concerned, the filtering company has done it's job. (obviously, if I want that email, it's another matter entirely - see my other response.)

unclebucknasty 11y ago

Exactly. I would add though that it can be a customer problem too. For instance, when customers order from Amazon, they expect an order confirmation, and generally find it helpful. Likewise, if customers need to reset passwords, etc. In fact, we learned of the problem when customers suddenly began to complain that they weren't receiving their password reset emails from us.