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by swiley 1858 days ago
I'm not convinced Google really solved spam, they're just not afraid to turn the sensitivity on the filter way up even if that means a chunk of legitimate mail gets marked as spam. Most smaller admins seem concerned about correctness and so they don't do this.

I think this really sums up Google's M.O. in general.

5 comments

I was there when they launched Gmail. I had an email account at almost every other big provider. Most of them were full of spam. Gmail was clean and the amount of legitimate emails misclassified was insignificant.

Everyone else had to up their game due to Gmail. On all fronts.

Comparing a new gmail account to an older account that hat many more chances to end up on spam lists is not really fair though.
Honestly, over years I think the amount of emails that were marked as spam but actually weren't (they were news letters that I didn't consider as spam but also were not important) was below 5, I think.

meanwhile tons of spam (crypto related) is marked as spam, without that it'd be pain enter my mailbox

even if that means a chunk of legitimate mail gets marked as spam

Obviously a personal anecdote, but I signed up for Gmail close to when it first came out, and I don't think I've ever had a legitimate piece of mail marked as spam.

I remember people clamoring to sign up for Gmail because it was the new thing, it had the counter that kept going up with "a lot" of storage space, etc. Folks were even paying others for a Gmail invite.

> Most smaller admins seem concerned about correctness and so they don't do this.

This, definitely. Take a look at gmail spam folder, it's always full of false positives.

> Even if that means legitimate mail gets marked as spam

I think that’s “especially as”. Other mail providers are competition, after all.