You know, my buddy Mitch Allen has been lamenting the high number of spam comments that have been coming to his blog. Whereas I also get a lot of spam, it doesn’t bother me because I find that logging the ISPs into the discussion area of the settings helps keep it down for a large part, and I did end up reactivating Akismet again.
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What has been irking me more often these days is all the email I keep getting from people using Gmail in trying to get me to trade links with them or offering to provide SEO services. I know all of this is spam, and even though they have that little disclaimer message at the end saying I can opt out, I’ve found that no I can’t, because they just create another account and continue sending garbage out.
I don’t use Gmail. Well, let me rephrase that. I don’t actively use Gmail. When I purchased my smartphone and had to set it up, because HTC is owned by Google they automatically overrode my username, which was my business email address, and added their own onto it (an email address they created because I’d never gone to create one). This meant that when I get notification that Adsense pays me, or that there’s new advertisers on GAN, or if someone subscribes to my YouTube site, or if anything happens on my G+ account, I get an email notification via Gmail, which I delete since the only place it shows up is on my phone.
Anyway, I had always thought that Google said there were qualifications people had to pass that they didn’t have to pass to create other shared email services that helped prevent spammers from gaining traction. Either I imagined that or once they decided they wanted to expand their participation base so that they could track us all better and override our privacy (oops, did I say that) they also decided to relax their standards and stopped caring who created accounts or what they did with them.
Frankly I think this stinks, and I think it’s one of the biggest failures of Google that, unfortunately, I also don’t think they have much chance to control or stop. Just like Hotmail in the past, it’s all about numbers and easy access to creating these accounts. Pretty much like I lamented about G+ recently, they let anyone create an account and don’t hold them accountable for filling out a profile. Sure, their numbers look impressive, but with an active base of less than 10% (that’s a high estimate) participating what’s it really worth?
I can’t be alone on this; who else is tired of the misuse of Gmail?
Gosh, I guess I haven’t paid attention all that much, but that’s not unusual either.
I mostly use my gmail account to follow blog comments that I subscribe to on Blogger. It makes it easier to weed through them quickly. I also use the gmail for certain blog related things. Mostly though I don’t use it for active correspondence. I haven’t noticed what you’re talking about.
Lee
The Dog Lived (and So Did I)
Wrote By Rote
An A to Z Co-host blog
Lee, I probably get so much because I have multiple websites, but 2 in particular get the bulk of the email. And the thing is that one of them is my SEO website; what the heck kind of reason would I have for wanting to connect with another SEO company through mine?
If I can say GMail is the hub of all Google accounts – Analytics, Webmaster tools, docs, etc. I am constantly use 2 Gmail account and I am quite happy with service, as well few of my websites email addresses are attached with Gmail, as I think it will be impossible to run 10 accounts from software, but still can send email from domain name emails. Generally I don’t have anything against Gmail, even if it is used automatically on mobile devices based on Android, I think all is related to new privacy policy which technically was active long before it was announced.
Carl, it’s spam coming from people who have Gmail accounts and they’re sending it all to my business accounts, and it’s getting on my nerve. And I know these are fake accounts in some fashion because none of the people respond when I’ve tried to unsubscribe.
Actually Mitch, spammers do not use actual accounts, they are sending email which include some kind of referral link, as they do not expect reply to the email, they can input any extension they feel in mood for – gmail.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, etc. They are using domain alias on localhost SMTP or web server. I suppose they are using gmail extension as it is most popular.
Carl, I hadn’t really considered that maybe it’s not from Google; now that’s an interesting thought.
I’m not a big use of Gmail Mitch but when I do log on there’s hardly any spam mail at all. When you compare that to my other email accounts I reckon it’s pretty good.
I was wondering why that would be so and I reckon it’s probably has to do with the fact that I don’t use it all that much.
Sire, you’re missing what I’m saying. I’m not getting spam to my Gmail account; I don’t even go there. I’m getting spam from many other people that have Gmail accounts and I think most of those accounts are fake. Either that or Google is allowing people to create accounts without proving who they are.
What was I thinking? My only defence is I must have still been half asleep as I only recently woke up. Heck, I’m even misunderstanding some tweets and we all know how long they can get 😀
I don’t usually check where my spam comes from and most of mine is taken care of by the spam software I bought from you.
Sire, unfortunately the spam filter doesn’t catch Gmail addresses, and since so many people are using it I don’t think it’s wise to go ahead and block it all, though I could probably figure out a way to do it.
Well I just checked today’s emails via MailWasher and nothing at all from Gmail. Doubt I will do that again and it’s a time waster. I don’t usually check to see where the mail is from, I just spam them
It’s not stuff coming to the blog; it’s coming to my email accounts, mainly my 2 business accounts, and it’s always the same stuff. Irritating as you can imagine.
I reckon they must just like you Mitch because I have MailWSasher checking all but my Gmail accounts and like I said no junk mail from Gmail accounts.
Sire, they can stop liking me as soon as possible; I won’t mind. Of course, these days I’m also getting tons of Twitter spam as well; must just be my time for it.
I get a few e-mails from GMail, but most are legitimate inquiries and comments. I do get a fair number of eMails offering SEO services, web site updates, link exchange requests (I don’t even HAVE a link exchange page people so do NOT tell me how impressed you are with my web site, you obviously haven’t seen it) and most of this comes through accounts with odd alpha-numeric addresses that change with each sending making them almost impossible to block. The worst are messages offering a variety of photo and editing services from a China based company. The body of the letters remain fairly constant so I can pick a key phrase and set my e-mail handler to trash anything containing that phrase. But it’s a chore to keep up with, that’s for sure.
Allan, you’re getting the same stuff I’m getting; finally, I know I’m not alone. lol I’m not getting the China stuff but if you’re getting it then it’ll probably show up on my radar soon enough, though I’m hoping not.
Hey Mitch, I’ve been really down about spam, for sure. I would like to talk with you about your specific issues – I have a theory that may help.
Rather than blather here on what may be totally off-base, I’ll email you with my idea.
As for my blog, I’ve reached the end of my tether, to quote our friend Val. Changes are coming.
Cheers,
Mitch
I really never had any spam problem with GMail, so far. My spam folders are filling up but all is detected without problems.
And consider all our corporate mailing is managed by GMail as we put the domain on Google Apps.
To be fair, I can’t imagine using any other service, included in-house, at the moment. Labels support and all the rest is just too superior to anything you can find around, commercial or not.
Gabriele, because of Mailwasher I’m lucky to not have any of it showing up on my computer, but it’s irritating that it’s coming in the first place.
I think its to G’s advatnage to have a large gmail base, spam or not because they can use content contained on that platform to help their search algorithm.
I use one or two for admin purposes but nothing much else – I do know that to have multiple accounts one does need to provide mobile phone numbers so i dont know how they get around that one.
One trick I read sometime ago was when you build a new site to send an email to or from a gmail account with your new site URL so it alerts the ‘spiders’
How strange Peter. I wonder why people would even feel the need to do that since it doesn’t seem to take Google all that long to find new sites. Yours is an interesting thought, Google wanting to basically be integrated in all portions of our lives and online world.
Google’s mail account is the easiest to create, that’s why spammers love it so much. Some spam filter or registration sites don’t allow to register with a gmail address. I think Google should solve the problem because they will lost some trust soon.
That’s how I see it Julie; they certainly don’t need more of us not trusting them, that’s for sure.
I have been getting emails from people offering their seo services and trading links as well. I use yahoo right now. I have also been getting more email from people in which I can’t even opt out of. It’s getting worse these days.
That’s it Alan; that’s what I’m getting as well. Irksome, but I guess it’s something we have to deal with for now.
I’d say the % of people spamming should be about the same on every free email provider, but as more people use gmail than smaller providers, you notice them more easily. But that doesn’t mean, that gmail attracts more spammers than others (perecentage wise)…
Probably not Andy, but lately that’s what it seems to be like.