My emails are getting bounced?

[Steven D'Aprano]

rymg19 at gmail.com wrote:

> I didn't even get this message. I had to go to the Google Groups interface
> to check for replies.


Have you checked your junk mail folder?


Unfortunately, the three of the Big Four mail providers -- Yahoo, Gmail, and
AOL[1] -- have collectively decided that mailing lists are oh-so-2012 and
are putting in place policies which make it harder and harder for their
users to successfully subscribe and post to mailing lists. Ironically,
Hotmail is probably the best of the Big Four in this regard.

I don't even think it is a conscious decision that mailing lists are
obsolete, I think it's mostly just technical incompetence and malice.
Apparently Yahoo and AOL got hacked a few years ago, the bad guys managed
to send out masses of spam via their mail servers, and they panicked,
over-reacted (or at least badly reacted) and implemented a half-arsed,
badly thought out implementation of DMARC which effectively makes it all
but impossible for Yahoo/AOL users to use mailing lists. I've been told
that Yahoo basically treats all bulk email as spam unless it comes from
Yahoo itself.

And of course Gmail and Google Groups make it hard to interoperate with the
rest of Usenet and non-Google mailing lists. They don't have the excuse of
technical incompetence. It's ironic that as Microsoft has slowly but surely
(and kicking and screaming most of the way) become a better web citizen,
Google's motto "Don't Be Evil" has become a sad joke more often than not.




[1] Hard to believe, but yes people do still use AOL.

-- 
Steven