On Tue, 26 Apr 2022, Rob McEwen via mailop wrote:
On 4/26/2022 10:27 PM, Al Iverson via mailop wrote:
and solid spam folder placement
I disagree - and here is why:
(1) somewhere roughly around 5 to 10 years ago - there were numerous
articles/discussions about how the spam problem was largely "solved" - and
people were getting less spam in their inbox. Anecdotally, and for
perspective, around that time, I recall having a customer (for whom I provide
email hosting) who got ANGRY at me when they spotted 1 spam in their inbox
one particular day - 1 spam - and it wasn't even that egregious (not a phish
or virus, etc). Why? They had gotten so used to seeing zero for many days in
a row - that 1 was suddenly something to get angry about. Remember those
days? But now - several years later - there is a building consensus that many
are getting more and more frustrated with what's suddenly making it past
their spam folder and into the inbox. So spam is suddenly a worse problem and
is suddenly UNsolved. I continually see articles about that frustration in my
new feeds. It didn't get that way overnight - more like it "snuck up on us"!
But it's suddenly hitting a critical mass in terms of recognition - it more
recently sort of "tipped the scales" - and the MAIN reason for this - is
largely BECAUSE of how much more such spams - much MORE than there used to be
even just a few years ago - are being sent from gmail, g-suite,
outlook/hotmail, o365, and various ESPs who have figured out that they're
"too big to block". The largest and most recent trend contributing to this...
is a huge surge in spam over the past several months which are sent from
gmail, as well as more ESPs providing "tracking links" that enable the
spammers to not have to expose their own domains. The sudden increase in
those two situations is causing this to be an suddenly worsening situation.
(2) This is putting a larger burden on spam filtering and DNSBLs and
anti-spam tech providers. We're all having to work extra hard, in some cases
doing massive renovations to our data to handle these changes - much of that,
again, is due to gmail suddenly being the "wild west" - that combined with as
other such things that are causing sending-IP-DNSBLs as well as lists that
block based on the domain in the links - to NOT work AT ALL for MANY of these
types of spams. Therefore - this is absolutely an "operational issue" -
because the costs and resources to deal with this - have been shifted from
those who are guilty of caring about the abuse sent from their networks - and
which they are often FACILITATING - to this cost being shifted the the
recipients' networks/systems which are being abused.
(3) And even the spam filtering success you're seeing - where filters are
putting these in the spam folder - those situations STILL suddenly require a
larger amount of costs and resources on the part of the spam tech departments
and tech-providers - as a DIRECT result of how these other systems are more
often now facilitating the exact types of spams that take more tech and more
resources (CPU, more anti-spam tech added, etc) to catch!
(4) As a result - for 1 example - before too long from now - the majority of
spam that invaluement data will be blocking - won't even be due to the types
of data we're currently delivering - we're currently having to re-engineer
our entire system as a result of this - doing the R&D over the past 4 years
(that's finally coming to fruition), what had previously been done over the
previous 12 years (btw - as a result - I don't have a life right now -
haven't had one in many months! Gee thanks, gmail). And that's representative
of this cost-shifting and burden-shifting - that is ethically reprehensible.
--
Rob McEwen, invaluement
I've been saying something similar for quite some time now to anyone who
would listen. Fortunately you've done so in a more deliberative and sane
manner than I usually do.
You have my sincere thanks for posting such a thoughtful response.
Ted Hatfield
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