Google is forcing new rules to tackle spam emails on Gmail

In an effort to reduce spam and other unwanted emails, Google announced a number of substantial changes to how it handles email from bulk senders. According to the corporation, beginning next year, bulk senders would be required to verify their emails, provide a simple mechanism to unsubscribe, and stay below a reported spam level.

The changes will affect any bulk sender, defined by Google as anyone who sends more than 5,000 messages to Gmail addresses in a single day. This may include practically any business with a sizable mailing list, from giant merchants to massive tech businesses to even tiny startups and B2C enterprises or newsletter writers trying to sell themselves via email.

Google claims to utilize AI technology to prevent more than 99.9% of spam, phishing, and malware from reaching users' inboxes, and it stops 15 billion unwanted emails every day. However, as technology advances, Google's defenses for its nearly 20-year-old email system must evolve as well.

To begin, Gmail will expand on a policy it implemented last year that requires emails sent to Gmail addresses to include some type of verification to ensure that the sender is who they claim to be. This update was required because many bulk senders do not adequately safeguard and configure their systems, allowing an attacker to "easily hide in their midst," according to a Google blog post. While this decreased the quantity of unauthenticated messages received by Gmail users by 75%, Google will now demand bulk senders to strongly authenticate their emails by February 2024 using a set of published best practices.

It would also require bulk senders to enable consumers to unsubscribe with a single click and to execute unsubscribe requests within two days.

Perhaps more controversially, Google will force bulk senders to maintain a low spam rate – an industry first, according to the firm. This implies that if a large number of users label a bulk sender's emails as spam, the bulk sender may lose access to the users' inboxes.

"No matter who their email provider is, all users deserve the safest, most secure experience possible," said Marcel Becker, Yahoo's senior director of Product, in a statement. "In the interconnected world of email, that requires all of us to collaborate. Yahoo looks forward to collaborating with Google and the rest of the email community to make these simple, high-impact changes the new industry standard," he said.

Google stated that many mass senders currently fulfill the new standards, and that it will continue to provide clear instructions until the changes take effect in February 2024.