6 ms·

Google reveals plan for big change to Gmail. 19 days to object

67 points by thund 4y ago

wodenokoto 4y ago
Is this something google is being pressured to do or do they really consider this a good idea? I mean. What’s in it for them?
- drekipus 4y ago
  It says it in the article. Basically it's a way to get around the bias question. What I don't get is why they need to talk to the FEC anyway? Are they obligated to provide spam detection? Couldn't they just decide to not spam these emails rather than making a big deal out of it?
  - 1123581321 4y ago
    They’re stuck working with the FEC due to the complaint alleging that their spam rules are illegal de facto donations. At this point, they’d want to make sure any major changes to political email filtering are acceptable to the regulator.
    - bnj 4y ago
      Also by asking the FEC to weigh in and approve this before moving forward, google is in a much stronger position: if they’re not approved to move forward, the FEC can now be the bad guy; if they do approve to move forward, then they don’t get hit later because the FEC gave the stamp of approval.
- jhugo 4y ago
  They can sell metrics about the emails (e.g. open rate) to the campaigns.
sschueller 4y ago
I once stupidity signed up to I think Obama's newsletter and since then no matter how many times I unsubscribe or mark email as spam I still get bombarded. The DNC and probably also the RNC just ignore it even though it is probably illegal. I get spam from random new candidates I never heard off. I believe the DNC just keep sending out some master list they have to new and exciting DNC members without cleaning the list.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  The trick is, all these groups share their mailing lists. So you opt out of ActBlue, but they've already shared your email with the Obama 2008 campaign. Then you opt out of that, but it's too late because they've already shared your email with Hope PAC and the priorities USA superpac. So finally you've unsubscribed from all that BS, just in time for you to get emails from the Reelect Obama 2012 Committee
- okamiueru 4y ago
  > no matter how many times I unsubscribe or mark email as spam I still get bombarded. I agree that it shouldn't be necessary, but, why not set up a filter to block that sender?
  - sschueller 4y ago
    The sender changes every campaign, every state senator has his/her own address.
    - okamiueru 4y ago
      That sounds truly horrifying. I won't presume you want a suggestion, but after switching to protonmail, the feeling of using a product rather than being one, is refreshing.
    - solarkraft 4y ago
metadat 4y ago
Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32080798 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32080798 (5 days ago; 49 points, 21 comments) Also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32077496 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32077496
hestefisk 4y ago
I’d love to read this, but … “Article continues after video.” So I scroll past the video, which unfortunately decides to attach itself to the top of my phone screen and command 1/3 of my whole browser window. What’s wrong with these people designing these kinds of web sites? They must be crazy thinking it will generate more revenue?
- jameshush 4y ago
  I spent 3ish years making these kinds of websites (specifically those click bait-y “Can you name these Canadian snack foods??” quiz sites). They generate _a lot_ more revenue. Like more than double. Digital publishing’s main business model is paying as little as possible for 1 click and monetizing that click as much as possible on the other end. The sales “funnel” isn’t a funnel here, its just two steps “1. Show link to article . 2. Show ads.” Now if you’re an organic heavy site like NFL.com, you get plenty of free clicks just by reposting articles to social media. Its more important to keep your brand strong with a couple of small, highly paid ad units. But if you’re just an average publisher, you gotta literally pay for attention. It turns into a game of spending $1.00 for an ad on Facebook/Tabola/Outbrain/Snap/etc and trying to make $1.30 when they land on the page. Long term bet IMO is still high quality organic content makes more profit, but you can still make a lot with 3-4 engineers and average-ish content.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - sha256sum 4y ago
    Thanks for reminding me of the pleasure I feel having a setup that ignores all of the work you and other like you have done in this field. Personally, this whole comment is ludicrous… but I can’t explain why. Maybe it’s just a smell
    - jameshush 4y ago
      I agree hahaha. That’s why I got out.
  - 4y ago
boojums 4y ago
Does this change help 3rd parties (e.g. the Green party)?
- mark_l_watson 4y ago
  Great point. I am a Libertarian and we don’t SPAM people. But I would hope that all political parties get the same treatment. BTW, I block email addresses and that works fairly well. To be honest, I don’t care much what Google does here.
  - wincy 4y ago
    The Libertarian party is incredibly amateurish compared to either major party. My wife helped a local candidate canvas, talked to lots of local libertarians an… nothing. No contact list, no keeping track, so no ability to keep building on your contacts. Until the Libertarian National Convention is more than a place to do hard drugs and embarrass the party by the chair literally being drunk during business, it’s not worth supporting the party.
    - silisili 4y ago
      It is. I made the mistake of selecting L instead of NPA when registering once, trying to get away from a bigger party. They literally just sent me one piece of mail with every L candidate in local, state, and national elections printed out. No pictures, no hello, no platform. Just a creepy list of names.
    - arlcode 4y ago
      As someone from outside the US: From online interactions, I get the feeling that it is quite typical for regular American people to get cold contacted by political candidates via mail, phone, text or even in person. How much of that impression is just bias by people complaining who forgot that they signed up for that? (For context: Where I am you would see parties having an open air infodesk in the center of town or a regulated number of TV / online ads and signs around election season)
handsclean 4y ago
The context here is that every time one politician’s or party’s email goes to spam more often than the other’s, they whip everybody into an anti-Google frenzy about “political manipulation”. Google, as usual, is insightful in their response: by acting quickly and aggressively to separate users into classes, they minimize the number of users who benefit from one class’s wins, and turn users against each other to disrupt the formation of any unified movement that questions Google’s unilateral control of email.
radford-neal 4y ago
Why can't they just give everyone the option of whether they want all political emails, or for such emails to be treated like other emails (hence possibly regarded as spam)? If they really thought hard, maybe they could give users the ability to choose amongst spam algorithms! A firm in a competitive market would certainly give their customers this option. Of course, Google isn't in a competitive market, and they don't consider gmail users to be customers.
mcswell 4y ago
FWIW, Congress has a "franking privilege" which allows senators and congressmen to send snail-mail free of postage. This privilege has been controversial, but afaik still exists.
- bogomipz 4y ago
  It does and it indeed is controversial. And perhaps not surprisingly the more vulnerable a representative's seat is the more they abuse this. To put some perspective on the cost: >"In total, House members spent about $6 million on mail franking in the first quarter of 2016."[1] Yes, that's for just a single quarter. [1] https://rollcall.com/2016/08/10/house-members-send-mail-on-taxpayers-dime-vulnerable-ones-do-it-much-more/ https://rollcall.com/2016/08/10/house-members-send-mail-on-t...
parkingrift 4y ago
This sort of nonsense is exactly why I switched to Hey email. If you want a good email service free from spyware and spam you’re going to have to pay for it. No free lunch.

67 points by thund 4y ago

Is this something google is being pressured to do or do they really consider this a good idea? I mean. What’s in it for them?

drekipus 4y ago
It says it in the article. Basically it's a way to get around the bias question. What I don't get is why they need to talk to the FEC anyway? Are they obligated to provide spam detection? Couldn't they just decide to not spam these emails rather than making a big deal out of it?
- 1123581321 4y ago
  They’re stuck working with the FEC due to the complaint alleging that their spam rules are illegal de facto donations. At this point, they’d want to make sure any major changes to political email filtering are acceptable to the regulator.
  - bnj 4y ago
    Also by asking the FEC to weigh in and approve this before moving forward, google is in a much stronger position: if they’re not approved to move forward, the FEC can now be the bad guy; if they do approve to move forward, then they don’t get hit later because the FEC gave the stamp of approval.
jhugo 4y ago
They can sell metrics about the emails (e.g. open rate) to the campaigns.

sschueller 4y ago

I once stupidity signed up to I think Obama's newsletter and since then no matter how many times I unsubscribe or mark email as spam I still get bombarded. The DNC and probably also the RNC just ignore it even though it is probably illegal. I get spam from random new candidates I never heard off. I believe the DNC just keep sending out some master list they have to new and exciting DNC members without cleaning the list.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Rebelgecko 4y ago
The trick is, all these groups share their mailing lists. So you opt out of ActBlue, but they've already shared your email with the Obama 2008 campaign. Then you opt out of that, but it's too late because they've already shared your email with Hope PAC and the priorities USA superpac. So finally you've unsubscribed from all that BS, just in time for you to get emails from the Reelect Obama 2012 Committee
okamiueru 4y ago
> no matter how many times I unsubscribe or mark email as spam I still get bombarded. I agree that it shouldn't be necessary, but, why not set up a filter to block that sender?
- sschueller 4y ago
  The sender changes every campaign, every state senator has his/her own address.
  - okamiueru 4y ago
    That sounds truly horrifying. I won't presume you want a suggestion, but after switching to protonmail, the feeling of using a product rather than being one, is refreshing.
  - solarkraft 4y ago

metadat 4y ago

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32080798 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32080798 (5 days ago; 49 points, 21 comments) Also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32077496 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32077496

hestefisk 4y ago

I’d love to read this, but … “Article continues after video.” So I scroll past the video, which unfortunately decides to attach itself to the top of my phone screen and command 1/3 of my whole browser window. What’s wrong with these people designing these kinds of web sites? They must be crazy thinking it will generate more revenue?

jameshush 4y ago
I spent 3ish years making these kinds of websites (specifically those click bait-y “Can you name these Canadian snack foods??” quiz sites). They generate _a lot_ more revenue. Like more than double. Digital publishing’s main business model is paying as little as possible for 1 click and monetizing that click as much as possible on the other end. The sales “funnel” isn’t a funnel here, its just two steps “1. Show link to article . 2. Show ads.” Now if you’re an organic heavy site like NFL.com, you get plenty of free clicks just by reposting articles to social media. Its more important to keep your brand strong with a couple of small, highly paid ad units. But if you’re just an average publisher, you gotta literally pay for attention. It turns into a game of spending $1.00 for an ad on Facebook/Tabola/Outbrain/Snap/etc and trying to make $1.30 when they land on the page. Long term bet IMO is still high quality organic content makes more profit, but you can still make a lot with 3-4 engineers and average-ish content.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- sha256sum 4y ago
  Thanks for reminding me of the pleasure I feel having a setup that ignores all of the work you and other like you have done in this field. Personally, this whole comment is ludicrous… but I can’t explain why. Maybe it’s just a smell
  - jameshush 4y ago
    I agree hahaha. That’s why I got out.
- 4y ago

boojums 4y ago

Does this change help 3rd parties (e.g. the Green party)?

mark_l_watson 4y ago
Great point. I am a Libertarian and we don’t SPAM people. But I would hope that all political parties get the same treatment. BTW, I block email addresses and that works fairly well. To be honest, I don’t care much what Google does here.
- wincy 4y ago
  The Libertarian party is incredibly amateurish compared to either major party. My wife helped a local candidate canvas, talked to lots of local libertarians an… nothing. No contact list, no keeping track, so no ability to keep building on your contacts. Until the Libertarian National Convention is more than a place to do hard drugs and embarrass the party by the chair literally being drunk during business, it’s not worth supporting the party.
  - silisili 4y ago
    It is. I made the mistake of selecting L instead of NPA when registering once, trying to get away from a bigger party. They literally just sent me one piece of mail with every L candidate in local, state, and national elections printed out. No pictures, no hello, no platform. Just a creepy list of names.
  - arlcode 4y ago
    As someone from outside the US: From online interactions, I get the feeling that it is quite typical for regular American people to get cold contacted by political candidates via mail, phone, text or even in person. How much of that impression is just bias by people complaining who forgot that they signed up for that? (For context: Where I am you would see parties having an open air infodesk in the center of town or a regulated number of TV / online ads and signs around election season)

handsclean 4y ago

The context here is that every time one politician’s or party’s email goes to spam more often than the other’s, they whip everybody into an anti-Google frenzy about “political manipulation”. Google, as usual, is insightful in their response: by acting quickly and aggressively to separate users into classes, they minimize the number of users who benefit from one class’s wins, and turn users against each other to disrupt the formation of any unified movement that questions Google’s unilateral control of email.

radford-neal 4y ago

Why can't they just give everyone the option of whether they want all political emails, or for such emails to be treated like other emails (hence possibly regarded as spam)? If they really thought hard, maybe they could give users the ability to choose amongst spam algorithms! A firm in a competitive market would certainly give their customers this option. Of course, Google isn't in a competitive market, and they don't consider gmail users to be customers.

mcswell 4y ago

FWIW, Congress has a "franking privilege" which allows senators and congressmen to send snail-mail free of postage. This privilege has been controversial, but afaik still exists.

bogomipz 4y ago
It does and it indeed is controversial. And perhaps not surprisingly the more vulnerable a representative's seat is the more they abuse this. To put some perspective on the cost: >"In total, House members spent about $6 million on mail franking in the first quarter of 2016."[1] Yes, that's for just a single quarter. [1] https://rollcall.com/2016/08/10/house-members-send-mail-on-taxpayers-dime-vulnerable-ones-do-it-much-more/ https://rollcall.com/2016/08/10/house-members-send-mail-on-t...

parkingrift 4y ago

This sort of nonsense is exactly why I switched to Hey email. If you want a good email service free from spyware and spam you’re going to have to pay for it. No free lunch.