Crooked Timber blocks all gmail.com comments due to spam flood
Don't Use a gmail.com Address
Crooked Timber, a group blog, is so overwhelmed by spam from fake gmail.com addresses that it has set its spam filter to delete all comments originating from gmail.com. The post advises legitimate commenters to use a fake email address like anon.com and their usual name, noting that the blog rarely checks email addresses. The author also suggests emailing him directly at his iCloud address for those having trouble, and adds a final note: 'Google is Evil.'
Although we ask for an email address, we almost never check that it’s real.
- readme
I host my own email. I also have a gmail account, that I've had since the beta.
I cannot tell you how many times I have encountered a person that asks for my email and then looked at me confused when it didn't end in gmail, outlook, or something, and then ask me for another email, as if only that would be good enough.
- Retr0id
Inferred context: It's the (unverified) email field of a blog comment submission form. gmail.com happens to be the domain that spammers pick most often for their fake email addresses for their spam comments.
- jwr
I gave up on reporting spam. Almost all of the spam I get (and I get a lot of it!) comes from Google, Amazon and Microsoft. None of them care much, none of them make reporting easy, and it seems they don't follow up, because the flood of spam never ceases.
They are "too big to fail": few people can afford to just block Google. This is why I am very happy to see people starting to do just that.
- UI_at_80x24
Blog is getting too much spam, so they are restricting posts/comments from Gmail.com addresses.
That's ok, I understand the desire. I also recognize that it's a lazy "fix". I have my own domain and prefer that so I can track compromised sites.
In quasi-related conversation though, in the last year I have encountered 2 "necessary" websites (insurance, and medical form) that would only accept: Gmail, yahoo, outlook, etc addresses!
It's frustrating.
- bcrl
I think the difference between Google's DMARC policy for gmail.com and google.com says it all:
bcrl@home:~/electronics/vrm/lm5017/test-lm5017-isobuck$ host -t txt _dmarc.gmail.com
_dmarc.gmail.com descriptive text "v=DMARC1; p=none; sp=quarantine; rua=mailto:mailauth-reports@google.com"
bcrl@home:~/electronics/vrm/lm5017/test-lm5017-isobuck$ host -t txt _dmarc.google.com
_dmarc.google.com descriptive text "v=DMARC1; p=reject; rua=mailto:mailauth-reports@google.com"