OzBargain Will Cease Sending Daily Newsletters to Accountless Subscribers with iCloud email addresses

moocher on 17/03/2025 - 09:05

Due to recurring blocks imposed by iCloud mail services affecting delivery of our email messages to iCloud email addresses, we will cease sending daily newsletters to account-less subscribers with @icloud.com, @mac.com or @me.com email addresses from 1 May 2025 onwards. Each time this issue has occurred in the past, it has caused extended (up to days) disruption to all users and subscribers with iCloud email addresses.

The affected subscribers have been notified via their daily newsletter to advise them to update their email address by 30 April 2025.

This does not affect users with registered accounts with icloud email addresses.

Hopefully the reduction in the number of emails sent to iCloud mail servers will prevent the triggering of the blocks. However, we do suggest that users on iCloud email addresses consider updating their email addresses to other providers. You can do so at any time from your account settings

Site Discussion

Comments

  • jv on 17/03/2025 - 09:12
    -6

    Jacinta won't be happy…

    jv on 17/03/2025 - 09:12 (Collapsed - Offtopic. Show)
    • geekcohen on 17/03/2025 - 09:35

      Be sure to email her and check - [email protected]

      • jv on 17/03/2025 - 09:42

        I doubt she will use her real email address.

  • Wiadro on 17/03/2025 - 12:54

    damn i guess ill need to change my mate's email
    [email protected]

    Wiadro on 17/03/2025 - 12:54 (Collapsed - Offtopic. Show)
  • AustriaBargain on 17/03/2025 - 14:12
    +2

    I understand that sending high reputation emails is expensive and because of the sheer volume of emails OZB sends they have to use low reputation, which is why Apple mail accounts flag them as spam and they end up in the spam folders of other mail services.

    • askbargain on 17/03/2025 - 14:57

      How would other mail services know to mark them as spam based on Apple’s decision?

      • AustriaBargain on 17/03/2025 - 15:04

        No, how Apple treats emails to .me and .icloud addresses doesn’t directly influence how other providers, like Gmail, classify those same emails, because each email provider evaluates incoming messages using its own spam filters and reputation criteria. A mail server’s reputation can plummet if it consistently sends poorly crafted, unengaging, or (perceived) unsolicited messages that result in high complaint rates, frequent user unsubscribes, and a low engagement rate, signalling spam-like behaviour to receiving systems.

        • CodeXD on 17/03/2025 - 15:52

          But then who is subscribing to ozb emails and then going, wtf I didn't subscribe to ozb?

          • AustriaBargain on 17/03/2025 - 17:02

            @CodeXD: Probably loads of people. I think my gmail account probably still has notifications from ozb in the spam folder, I’m not sure because i never check the spam folder. I never get ozb emails in the inbox, even password reset and stuff always in spam.

          • mskeggs on 17/03/2025 - 22:42

            @CodeXD: People just hit the spam button, not the unsubscribe button,

      • mskeggs on 17/03/2025 - 22:41

        There are several spam blacklists that are automagically shared amongst mail servers. Some are ‘dumb’ and if any of the participating admins blacklist you, it causes everyone to do so.
        Most are smarter, and use appearing on a blacklist as one strike, another might be based on content, e.g. mentioning things common in your spam folder. So a message might be fine on gmail, but marked as spam at Apple, if they weight things differently or use different lists.
        Here is a way to check:
        https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx

        I haven’t had to do any of this for years, there are likely many more extra considerations these days in mail delivery.

  • tenpercent on 17/03/2025 - 16:04

    TIL there is an OZbargain newsletter.

  • scotty on 20/03/2025 - 13:00
    +2

    We send out ~250k emails each day and many of them go to large email providers.

    • Gmail — never really had any issue. Some might get marked as spams on user's inbox but at least they are "delivered". Google also provides a good Postmaster Tools portal to help domain owners to track spam rate, IP reputation, etc.

    • Hotmail / Outlook — sometimes Outlook's email servers give us status=sent but the email is nowhere to be found in recipient's inbox, including spam folders. Some of those that deemed as spams just disappear from the ether. Outlook does provide some preliminary Postmasters support "Smart Network Data Service" but it's a bit useless.

    • iCloud — bounces all messages and gives us "Message rejected due to local policy" error every other month. Usually requires our upstream provider (BinaryLane) to contact them to have this resolved which might be 1-2 days turnaround. No Postmaster tools provided.

    Do note that OzBargain already

    • Have SPF, DKIM and DMARC records
    • All emails are opt-in. Newsletter subscriptions for guest users require confirmation.
    • Throttle iCloud delivery to maximum 1 message per 10 second per domain (icloud.com, me.com, mac.com)

    Somehow we are still often blocked by iCloud. When we get blocked by iCloud all users' emails including 2 factor authentications cannot be delivered. We are now trying to reduce the number of emails to iCloud to see whether that would reduce the chance of us getting blocked.

  • itsfree on 24/03/2025 - 10:01

    Thanks for the update, guys. I decided to just switch to my Gmail account because it has been too much of a hassle dealing with this so often.

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join