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It goes beyond self hosting and IP blocks, because even if you use a large email provider other than Google or Microsoft, Google will quite happily block you to

It goes beyond self hosting and IP blocks, because even if you use a large email provider other than Google or Microsoft, Google will quite happily block you too. So far as I can surmise: I got a ban from Google, that lasted a month because I sent a mail to a contact that contained the text of an advert I wished to complain about. During that time I could send mail to my own Google account but to nobody else's. If Google or Microsoft want to be blameless, they will have to do a lot better than send this with no means to object: "Our system has detected that this 550-5.7.1 message is likely suspicious due to the very low reputation of the 550-5.7.1 sending domain. To best protect our users from spam, the message has 550-5.7.1 been blocked. Please visit 550 5.7.1 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/188131 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/188131" Email should be decentralised in future, as federated answering machines with pre-exchanged and allowlisted addresses. The concept has become totally unworkable for unsolicited mails.

zaphar 5y ago
I'm not sure it's feasible to do better than that. They clearly call out the reason there. The domain has a poor reputation. The sheer amount of manual labor to field questions for every good actor who unfortunately is caught in the blast radius of other bad actors is an unworkable business model. This isn't Googles fault. It's baked into how email works when combined with Eternal September. Blaming them is like blaming the Weather Channel for bad weather. They are just the messenger. Google has it's fair share of suspect activities but this isn't one them.
- eliasmacpherson 5y ago
  The domain is a major email provider, protonmail. They can read the contents and they already have the option to put it in a spam folder if it so heinous. They could very easily elaborate whether it is the domain, my address or the content of a previous message that has resulted in the block, but no. They could simply do that instead of subtly encouraging me to use their email service, it is entirely their fault.

zaphar 5y ago

I'm not sure it's feasible to do better than that. They clearly call out the reason there. The domain has a poor reputation. The sheer amount of manual labor to field questions for every good actor who unfortunately is caught in the blast radius of other bad actors is an unworkable business model. This isn't Googles fault. It's baked into how email works when combined with Eternal September. Blaming them is like blaming the Weather Channel for bad weather. They are just the messenger. Google has it's fair share of suspect activities but this isn't one them.

eliasmacpherson 5y ago
The domain is a major email provider, protonmail. They can read the contents and they already have the option to put it in a spam folder if it so heinous. They could very easily elaborate whether it is the domain, my address or the content of a previous message that has resulted in the block, but no. They could simply do that instead of subtly encouraging me to use their email service, it is entirely their fault.