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> There are going to be false positives, we will make mistakes, but we certainly care a lot about fixing issues like this when we hear about them. Oh really? T

> There are going to be false positives, we will make mistakes, but we certainly care a lot about fixing issues like this when we hear about them. Oh really? Then what is the mechanism by which an affected user can report an issue like this and receive individual, accountable response? Because that is what a company that cares about fixing issues does. As far as I can tell, the only redress available for any issue like this with Google is 1) be a big enough name like Jamie Zawinksi (he has been posting about struggles with this exact issue for several months) that your blog post gets attention, or 2) hope your blog post makes the front page on a site like HN.

jessaustin 8y ago
Why didn't you link JWZ's blog post? b^)
- ghostly_s 8y ago
  His blog is very easy to find, but also is full of all sorts of off-topic NSFW stuff which I don't really want to send people into unawares if they're not familiar with who he is. He has several recent posts on this topic which I don't feel like tracking down as their content doesn't really add anything to the conversation -- it's basically exactly what you see in the OP here, with more colorful expletives.
ok_coo 8y ago
This is the part that's going to bite them when antitrust comes around. They are largely unaccountable and there's no real way to get a hold of a human being unless you shame them on social media and it gets enough traction.
- gtirloni 8y ago
  If you're a paying customer, you definitely can get a human being to look at your problem. The difficulty in this case is the people operating SMTP servers are not paying customers, the free Gmail users are not paying customers and the GSuite paying customers don't think it's their problem (after all, the spam filters works quite well these days and lots of people are on Gmail, making the problem very small in the receiving end of this situation). It seems an external force will have to push Google in the right direction (of having systems in place to deal with the exceptions). If that's going to be public outcry, legislation, etc... We will see. On the automation front, it seems Gmail could do a better job at tracking sender reputation over time (i.e. you haven't send spam in a while, we'll be more lenient with our spam rules).
  - luckylion 8y ago
    > If you're a paying customer, you definitely can get a human being to look at your problem. Doubt. We're paying ~$10k/month on ads. The Ads API is rate limited, but it's either broken or has arcane logic, so about every 4-6 weeks, the usual workload will trigger it and we're shut out for 12-24 hours. Can talk to ad support whenever I want, but all they are good for is optimizing campaigns and explaining the UI. No option to get to technical support, no option for ads support to escalate. Of course, we might not be a large enough customer, but it certainly isn't about "paying".
    - gtirloni 8y ago
      Here's the form to make a complaint about customer support: https://support.google.com/google-ads/contact/aw_complaint https://support.google.com/google-ads/contact/aw_complaint
      - luckylion 8y ago
        Thank you, but I and pretty much everybody at the company has given up months ago. We've tried everything we could (well, I guess we should've tried to go viral on HN or twitter...) and it got ignored again and again. It has become a bit of a rite of passage when somebody new arrives, they see the error ticket for the first time and are eager to dig into it and solve a long standing problem. It's like a trust fall, only the lesson is not to trust, and you learn that lesson by falling.
  - marcinzm 8y ago
    >If you're a paying customer, you definitely can get a human being to look at your problem. Based on the number of hacker news posts from people who pay them money and are locked out of their accounts by automated systems with no recourse I'd say that's utterly false. Maybe you meant to say "if you pay them enough money" which is true. But most people don't have that much money to pay them.
    - gtirloni 8y ago
jrnichols 8y ago
… or 3) "if you can't beat them, join them!" It feels like Google hopes that you just give up on self-hosting your own email and simply move over to Gsuite. It certainly feels that way. Especially when it feels like Google/Gmail/Gsuite are commonly recommended nowadays.

jessaustin 8y ago

Why didn't you link JWZ's blog post? b^)

ghostly_s 8y ago
His blog is very easy to find, but also is full of all sorts of off-topic NSFW stuff which I don't really want to send people into unawares if they're not familiar with who he is. He has several recent posts on this topic which I don't feel like tracking down as their content doesn't really add anything to the conversation -- it's basically exactly what you see in the OP here, with more colorful expletives.

ok_coo 8y ago

This is the part that's going to bite them when antitrust comes around. They are largely unaccountable and there's no real way to get a hold of a human being unless you shame them on social media and it gets enough traction.

gtirloni 8y ago
If you're a paying customer, you definitely can get a human being to look at your problem. The difficulty in this case is the people operating SMTP servers are not paying customers, the free Gmail users are not paying customers and the GSuite paying customers don't think it's their problem (after all, the spam filters works quite well these days and lots of people are on Gmail, making the problem very small in the receiving end of this situation). It seems an external force will have to push Google in the right direction (of having systems in place to deal with the exceptions). If that's going to be public outcry, legislation, etc... We will see. On the automation front, it seems Gmail could do a better job at tracking sender reputation over time (i.e. you haven't send spam in a while, we'll be more lenient with our spam rules).
- luckylion 8y ago
  > If you're a paying customer, you definitely can get a human being to look at your problem. Doubt. We're paying ~$10k/month on ads. The Ads API is rate limited, but it's either broken or has arcane logic, so about every 4-6 weeks, the usual workload will trigger it and we're shut out for 12-24 hours. Can talk to ad support whenever I want, but all they are good for is optimizing campaigns and explaining the UI. No option to get to technical support, no option for ads support to escalate. Of course, we might not be a large enough customer, but it certainly isn't about "paying".
  - gtirloni 8y ago
    Here's the form to make a complaint about customer support: https://support.google.com/google-ads/contact/aw_complaint https://support.google.com/google-ads/contact/aw_complaint
    - luckylion 8y ago
      Thank you, but I and pretty much everybody at the company has given up months ago. We've tried everything we could (well, I guess we should've tried to go viral on HN or twitter...) and it got ignored again and again. It has become a bit of a rite of passage when somebody new arrives, they see the error ticket for the first time and are eager to dig into it and solve a long standing problem. It's like a trust fall, only the lesson is not to trust, and you learn that lesson by falling.
- marcinzm 8y ago
  >If you're a paying customer, you definitely can get a human being to look at your problem. Based on the number of hacker news posts from people who pay them money and are locked out of their accounts by automated systems with no recourse I'd say that's utterly false. Maybe you meant to say "if you pay them enough money" which is true. But most people don't have that much money to pay them.
  - gtirloni 8y ago

jrnichols 8y ago

… or 3) "if you can't beat them, join them!" It feels like Google hopes that you just give up on self-hosting your own email and simply move over to Gsuite. It certainly feels that way. Especially when it feels like Google/Gmail/Gsuite are commonly recommended nowadays.