Bulk Email Sender Changes / Requirements at Major Email Providers

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I got a notification from AWS that Yahoo and Gmail are implementing a long list of new rules for “Bulk” email senders.
Discourse I think can fall into this category specially if you use Mailing List Mode (as we do)

Are there any plans (or maybe it already does this) to implement these new requirements in Discourse Emails?

The changes / requirements are outlined here

Some of them are external like DKIM and SPF but there are some changes required also the body of the email

Bulk senders are expected to include a mechanism to unsubscribe by adding an easy to find link within the message. The February 2024 mailbox provider rules will require senders to additionally add one-click unsubscribe headers as defined by RFC 2369 and RFC 8058. These headers make it easier for recipients to unsubscribe, which reduces the rate at which recipients will complain by marking messages as spam.

There are many factors that could result in your messages being classified as bulk by any mailbox provider. Volume over 5000 per day is one factor, but the primary factor that mailbox providers use is in whether the recipient actually wants to receive the mail.

Thanks!

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Discourse already generates unsubscribe links in the List-Unsubscribe header and in the body of the message. Have you reviewed these and found them insufficient?

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No I just wasn’t sure if these were the same as the RFC Requirements. Was trying to confirm if it already did it as described.

4

This came to my attention again recently, and I actually had the bandwidth to delve into the details.

We’ve had a List-Unsubscribe header for ages, but there’s a strong push for having an actual one-click unsubscribe without a further confirmation step from the sender.

This is accomplished using a new header defined in RFC8058

List-Unsubscribe: <https://example.com/unsubscribe/opaquepart>
List-Unsubscribe-Post: List-Unsubscribe=One-Click

Upon explicit user verification, activating this triggers a POST request from the mail client with content similar to:

POST /unsubscribe/opaquepart HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 26

List-Unsubscribe=One-Click

We might need to add support for this.

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I had an issue with something similar in a different mailing list the issue with single click unsubscribe is that a lot of mail clients and spam / virus filters will click / activate links to “investigate” them and it ends up unsubscribing someone so you definitely need a confirmation of some sort not just a link activation

We had a bunch of people specially those in enterprise / outlook that got auto unsubscribed

But maybe if it’s done via this header it is okay

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This concern is specifically addressed by this RFC.

A GET request must not trigger the unsubscribe for exactly this reason, only a POST which has to be explicitly confirmed by the user.

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