Google Launches Gmail Postmaster Tools To Eliminate Spam

Mark Wilson writes: Spam is a problem that is not going away for anyone who receives email — and who doesn't? Over the years Google has taken steps to try to reduce the amount of junk that reaches Gmail inboxes and today the company is taking things a step further with Gmail Postmaster Tools and enhanced filter training for Gmail. Part of the problem with spam — aside from the sheer volume of it — is that the detection of it is something of an art rather than a science. It is all too easy for legitimate email to get consigned to the junk folder, and this is what Gmail Postmaster Tools aims to help with. Rather than helping recipients banish spam, it helps senders ensure that their messages are delivered to inboxes rather than filtered out.

Comments

Probably Good

[The Raven]

I know that some people are looking at that 'help companies get their mail into inboxes rather than filtered' comment with trepidation. But I don't think it's nefarious like that. I work at a small university, and it's pretty common (and frustrating for students) to have important emails like 'Here is how you log in for the first time' get filtered out as spam because the same email is sent to thousands of students... it looks like spam. These tools just let us register our domain and add tags to our emails marking it as official email from the school.

That still allows the user algorithms to reduce the significance of the email, tossing it in the 'Advertisement' category, or 'Low Priority', or other variations of 'not spam, but maybe you'd like to hide it anyway' category. But it should reduce how ofter the email is thrown away completely, and they can't even search for it because it was tossed out with the garbage.

I took a look at the postmaster tools, and as soon as the DNS update goes through (which proves to Google that I'm allowed to manage our postmaster tools) I'll have a better idea what options it gives us.

Re:Just wait for the abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

To block very young domains I recommend you use the fresh15.spameatingmonkey.net blacklist from Spam Eating Monkey.