Effects of the Yahoo and Google Changes

In October 2023, Yahoo and Google announced new standards for sending bulk mail to their systems. For bulk senders these changes included requiring aligned authentication and publishing a DMARC record and complying with the List-Unsubscribe RFC. The ISPs also formally announced complaints must stay below a threshold of 0.3%. At the time of the announcement, they said enforcement would start in February 2024. As with many things, this enforcement deadline was pushed as ESPs explained the challenges to meet the deadlines.

We’re now 15 months from the initial announcement and almost a year from the initial enforcement deadline. So how are things going?

Overall, I think that this has resulted in a lot of senders Leveling Up, as it were. For years, deliverability and compliance folks were pushing clients and customers and their own companies to implement these best practices. But, as long as mail was delivered ‘best practices’ was aspirational. The Google and Yahoo announcement gave companies actual incentives to implement the best practices that many companies just never quite got around to implementing.

Recently, Stripo reached out to a number of us asking what we thought of the changes and how things were going. They published their article this week and I think it’s great. The After Effects of Gmail and Yahoo’s Sender Requirements. I’m quoted in there a little, but what impressed me the most was how much I nodded along reading other folks’ experiences.

Go check it out!