[grc] Question about Google blocking e-mails to radio station deejay list

[Leigh Robartes]

I have a question for those who are in charge of e-mail lists for 
deejays at stations, or perhaps for the administrator of this list.   
Our e-mail list administrator was noting some e-mails sent to our modest 
e-mail list (about 160 addresses, since paired down to 77 addresses) are 
sometimes being blocked by Google, at least the ones sent to gmail 
addresses.   Our e-mail list is an important organizing tool, and a good 
way to keep in touch w/ former deejays who might want to start 
volunteering again now that Covid has changed their life around.


The administrator claims that if we move our e-mail list to Google 
Services we would avoid the problem, but obviously we can't do this for 
ethical reasons, mainly because (as I am told) moving to Google Services 
would mean all of our @krfp.org accounts would be become disguised 
@gmail.com accounts.   Google has been harvesting the actual text of 
e-mail messages sent and received from gmail accounts for years, and 
although they apparently no longer sell that info for advertising 
purposes, the company still has cached everything written, which is a 
violation of privacy.


We got a list of e-mail messages Google blocked from an ISP and a 
message from a tech there who wrote:


<<<begin snip>>>


to accept email from other servers, the spf record contains “?all”, 
meaning make up your own mind about accepting email from servers not 
listed. Google deems all email sent from a server not listed as spam and 
rejects it. The line:

“This is the mail system at host _ofagrave02.hostedemail.com_ 
<http://ofagrave02.hostedemail.com/>” suggest the email is coming from 
email system not among those listed in your spf record. Best guess, 
since Google doesn’t publish how they make up their minds about an email.

The other possibility is pointed to by the 
“_https://support.google.com/mail/?p=UnsolicitedRateLimitError_ 
<https://support.google.com/mail/?p=UnsolicitedRateLimitError> to 421 
4.7.28.” The numbers at the end refer to email being sent at a rate 
higher than Google allows – for example, from a bulk email program or 
service.

Google is very aggressive.


<<<end snip>>>


The above message implies Google is not letting _non-spam_ e-mails 
through, justifying the practice by saying they are suspected spam.


_My Question:_


How can you operate an e-mail list (some of them, such as GRC, which 
have hundreds of addresses) without getting messages blocked and without 
going through Google Services?  Do we need to change to a different 
service?   What do you use? Have you been able to avoid problems like this?


-- 
Leigh Robartes
Station Manager
KRFP / Radio Free Moscow, Inc.
90.3 FM
Moscow, Idaho

208 892 9300