3 ms·

A few months ago when I moved I set up my network to DNS blackhole known Tracker's and Ad serving sites. Since then I have gotten more complaints about people n

A few months ago when I moved I set up my network to DNS blackhole known Tracker's and Ad serving sites. Since then I have gotten more complaints about people not being able to use email since it turns out almost every email I get today is laced with tracking of some sort. I do not want any more smarts in my emails, I just want text that gets sent back and forth. I know this article claims this will help "Get things done", but I feel it will just be used to track and sell things to me even more then people currently try to.

pfortuny 8y ago
What? So there are mail servers which do not deliver? What the heck is this crap?
- eponeponepon 8y ago
  Email has been slowly balkanising itself for years now. By way of example, I know personally several people who run mail relays and not only refuse to relay messages from and to Google email servers but even refuse to _receive_ emails addressed to their users from GMail addresses. All of this on what is essentially a political objection. In the fullness of time, email will fail as a communication medium because of these situations. I don't think that Google will mind terribly when it does.
  - thaumaturgy 8y ago
    It's not just political. I haven't taken that step but really sympathize with those that do. Forwarding mail to Gmail accounts is perilous. My outbound queue is constantly full of mail to an established Gmail account that Google is throttling for some reason or another. I finally parted ways with a user over this specifically, since they had a number of mail accounts that were all forwarded to their Gmail account. For a company with so many smart employees, their handling on this is really dumb. Receiving mail from Gmail accounts isn't much better. Spammers have discovered that they can cheaply spin up new Gmail accounts and spam the world for a good while before Google detects it. Since so many people use Gmail, on the receiving side I can't use any of the network reputation tricks to catch the spam. So, these days, an appreciable percentage of the spam landing in my users' mail accounts is coming from Google. If it were just me, I'm pretty sure I'd just block anything to or from Gmail altogether and have one less recurring headache. ...which is really a shame, because I remember the excitement and wonder when Gmail debuted and how amazing it was at the time.
  - JohnFen 8y ago
    > I know personally several people who run mail relays and not only refuse to relay messages from and to Google email servers but even refuse to _receive_ emails addressed to their users from GMail addresses. I don't refuse to relay messages to/from gmail addresses, but I do avoid interacting with gmail addresses as much as possible. The less I'm touching Google servers, the better. Fortunately, most of the people I exchange email with don't use gmail.
everdrive 8y ago
Do you know if there are any domain lists available for blocking AMP?
crazygringo 8y ago
What's the technical explanation for that? I don't understand how that would prevent e-mail from being "used". Presumably people aren't sending e-mails to domains that belong to trackers/ads? Otherwise I don't see what the problem would be.
- acdha 8y ago
  Look at the URLs in emails from big companies. A ton of them go through a click-tracker first so if the tracker fails you can't follow the link.
  - dkhenry 8y ago
    Its not even big companies any more. All the tools that help people send out group emails ( so things like invites to dinner parties, or birthday parties, or sign up lists for school snack duty )
    - acdha 8y ago
      Big companies wasn’t the right term: I would class what you mentioned in the same bucket I had in mind, which was more like “places which use marketing tools” – the local parents group might not build their own system but they’re pretty likely to be using one because the cost is low and everyone wants to have statistics.
- dkhenry 8y ago
  Images and links in the E-mails are set up with trackers, so they won't load when people are on my network. Additionally most of the actionable links in emails go through trackers before they take you where you need to go.
- rhizome 8y ago
  A lot of people use massmailing services, which mediate everything in every email sent through them so marketing interns can track a message's open rate. Every click is short-url'ed through the service, and every image is served through them. If you have images turned on by default, you'll also get tracking bugs as soon as you open the email.

pfortuny 8y ago

What? So there are mail servers which do not deliver? What the heck is this crap?

eponeponepon 8y ago
Email has been slowly balkanising itself for years now. By way of example, I know personally several people who run mail relays and not only refuse to relay messages from and to Google email servers but even refuse to _receive_ emails addressed to their users from GMail addresses. All of this on what is essentially a political objection. In the fullness of time, email will fail as a communication medium because of these situations. I don't think that Google will mind terribly when it does.
- thaumaturgy 8y ago
  It's not just political. I haven't taken that step but really sympathize with those that do. Forwarding mail to Gmail accounts is perilous. My outbound queue is constantly full of mail to an established Gmail account that Google is throttling for some reason or another. I finally parted ways with a user over this specifically, since they had a number of mail accounts that were all forwarded to their Gmail account. For a company with so many smart employees, their handling on this is really dumb. Receiving mail from Gmail accounts isn't much better. Spammers have discovered that they can cheaply spin up new Gmail accounts and spam the world for a good while before Google detects it. Since so many people use Gmail, on the receiving side I can't use any of the network reputation tricks to catch the spam. So, these days, an appreciable percentage of the spam landing in my users' mail accounts is coming from Google. If it were just me, I'm pretty sure I'd just block anything to or from Gmail altogether and have one less recurring headache. ...which is really a shame, because I remember the excitement and wonder when Gmail debuted and how amazing it was at the time.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  > I know personally several people who run mail relays and not only refuse to relay messages from and to Google email servers but even refuse to _receive_ emails addressed to their users from GMail addresses. I don't refuse to relay messages to/from gmail addresses, but I do avoid interacting with gmail addresses as much as possible. The less I'm touching Google servers, the better. Fortunately, most of the people I exchange email with don't use gmail.

everdrive 8y ago

Do you know if there are any domain lists available for blocking AMP?

crazygringo 8y ago

What's the technical explanation for that? I don't understand how that would prevent e-mail from being "used". Presumably people aren't sending e-mails to domains that belong to trackers/ads? Otherwise I don't see what the problem would be.

acdha 8y ago
Look at the URLs in emails from big companies. A ton of them go through a click-tracker first so if the tracker fails you can't follow the link.
- dkhenry 8y ago
  Its not even big companies any more. All the tools that help people send out group emails ( so things like invites to dinner parties, or birthday parties, or sign up lists for school snack duty )
  - acdha 8y ago
    Big companies wasn’t the right term: I would class what you mentioned in the same bucket I had in mind, which was more like “places which use marketing tools” – the local parents group might not build their own system but they’re pretty likely to be using one because the cost is low and everyone wants to have statistics.
dkhenry 8y ago
Images and links in the E-mails are set up with trackers, so they won't load when people are on my network. Additionally most of the actionable links in emails go through trackers before they take you where you need to go.
rhizome 8y ago
A lot of people use massmailing services, which mediate everything in every email sent through them so marketing interns can track a message's open rate. Every click is short-url'ed through the service, and every image is served through them. If you have images turned on by default, you'll also get tracking bugs as soon as you open the email.