Gmail has updated its spam policy, which will prevent mass email senders from sending excessive messages to users. Google will gradually enforce this policy starting from April 2024, which will help to reduce spam emails faced by Gmail users. This move will directly affect marketing agencies that send targeted promotional emails.
The announcement was made by Google in its Email Sender Guidelines FAQ. Gmail will now authenticate emails from senders who send more than 5000 emails per day. The company also wants to make it easier for recipients to unsubscribe from newsletters, promotions, etc, which tend to flood inboxes.
Under the new regulations, emails from bulk senders will be authenticated against Gmail’s sender guidelines. If a sender is found to be pushing a large number of irrelevant emails, a portion of those emails will be rejected by Gmail. Google has not specified the percentage for filtering out spam, but the company has clearly warned bulk senders to keep an eye on their spam rate.
How does this help general Gmail users?
Gmail can detect when you ignore too many emails from a specific sender. This data will be used by the company to monitor which bulk senders deliver a high number of irrelevant emails. Until now, Gmail was only suggesting users to unsubscribe from senders, but it will now prevent the email from landing in your inbox in the first place.
The new spam protection policy is in addition to Gmail’s AI-powered RETVec algorithm, which was announced in November 2023. Google calls it the biggest security update for Gmail in years, as it can reduce spam by over 38%. It can also detect homoglyphs and special characters which are often used in phishing attacks.
The company also introduced an easily accessible unsubscribe button on the website, Android, and iOS applications. However, these measures have not proven to be effective enough.
Google is also showcasing its AI prowess with its Gemini Advanced AI. Although it is not directly linked with Gmail, it gives us an idea of the company’s potential in the implementation of AI. It will be interesting to see how effectively Google tackles spam on Gmail with its new regulations.
