We have a 99% email reputation. Gmail disagrees
Font Awesome details its frustration with Gmail's spam filters, claiming a 99% internal reputation score while their emails vanish. However, Hacker News commenters largely disagree, asserting that if users mark an email as spam, it is spam, regardless of sender intent. The discussion quickly devolves into a contentious debate on email marketing ethics and Gmail's role in policing inboxes.
The Lowdown
Font Awesome, the popular icon toolkit provider, has aired its grievances regarding the challenges of email deliverability, specifically with Gmail. Despite maintaining a 99% reputation score with their email service provider (SendGrid), the company discovered its critical announcement emails for a new Kickstarter campaign were consistently being routed to Gmail users' spam folders.
- The company highlighted Gmail's independent and opaque reputation system, which they argue operates on its own rules, often to the detriment of senders who don't conform to its unspoken expectations.
- They describe a "catch-22" situation: email systems reportedly penalize infrequent sending by lowering reputation due to inactivity, while frequent sending risks user complaints. This paradox, they claim, punishes companies striving to respect user inboxes.
- Font Awesome stressed its intent to only send emails when there's "something fun to share"—major releases or important news—which would amount to only a few times a year.
- As a temporary measure, the company urged users to manually search for their emails in spam folders and mark them as "not spam" to help restore their sender reputation.
The article underscores the complexities and frustrations that businesses face in navigating the modern email ecosystem, particularly when dealing with dominant providers like Gmail, and questions whether the system inadvertently discourages respectful communication practices.
The Gossip
Spam Shamers: Users Call Out Font Awesome's Marketing
The overwhelming sentiment among commenters is that Font Awesome's emails *are* spam, regardless of the company's internal reputation scores or good intentions. Many argue that if recipients mark an email as unwanted, it is, by definition, spam. Specific criticisms include using a list primarily for icon updates to promote an unrelated Kickstarter, assuming users are "excited" about product news, and employing marketing tactics perceived as intrusive.
Gmail's Gripes: Deliverability for the Little Guy
While many sided with Gmail's filtering, a significant portion of the discussion centered on shared frustrations with Gmail's opaque and sometimes arbitrary spam detection. Users recount instances where legitimate personal emails, transactional messages, or communications from small providers end up in spam, despite best practices. Some view Gmail's dominant position as potentially anti-competitive, pushing users towards Google's own services.
Consent Concerns and Email Etiquette
Commenters delved into the ethics of how Font Awesome obtains and manages email addresses. Concerns were raised about automatic subscriptions without explicit opt-in, perceived 'dark patterns' like cycling sender names (e.g., from different employees), and difficulties with unsubscribe processes. The consensus was clear: "opt-out is not consent," and any unwanted email, regardless of the sender's perceived value, will be marked as spam.