Gmail and Yahoo have updated their guidance on when enforcement will begin with their new DKIM/SPF, DMARC, and spam policies.
- Google states that “enforcement for bulk senders that don’t meet our email sender guidelines will be gradual and progressive. Starting in February 2024, senders out of compliance are likely to see light and intermittent temporary deferrals. Starting in April, that’ll change to rejections instead of deferrals, and they’ll increase the percentage of non-compliant mail over time. One-click unsubscribe should be in place by June 2024 for all commercial messages. (More details here.)
- Yahoo is indicating that authentication requirements and low complaint rates must be met by February 2024, but that one-click unsubscribe now has an implementation deadline of June, 2024. Publishing a DMARC policy and authenticating with both DKIM and SPF seems to be required as of February 2024. (More details here.)
Gmail's unannounced changes
While Gmail has announced a date for future changes, other changes have already been implemented.
- Domains with invalid SPF/DKIM are rejected. If you switch hosting providers this prevents a common mistake.
- Spam rates above 1% downgrade domain reputation. This used to be over 5% before your domain was downgraded.
- New Bounce Code 421 4.7.28 Our system has detected an unusual rate of unsolicited mail originating from your IP address. To protect our users from spam, mail sent from your IP address has been temporarily rate limited. Please visit https://support.google.com/mail/?p=UnsolicitedRateLimitError to review our Bulk Email Senders Guidelines.
- New Bounce Code 421 4.7.28 Gmail has detected an unusual rate of unsolicited mail containing one of your URL domains. To protect our users from spam, mail with the URL has been temporarily rate limited. Please visit https://support.google.com/mail/?p=UnsolicitedRateLimitError to review our Bulk Email Senders Guidelines. – gsmtp
- 421 4.7.28 Gmail has detected an unusual rate of unsolicited mail originating from your SPF domain. To protect our users from spam, mail sent from your domain has been temporarily rate limited. Please visit https://support.google.com/mail/?p=UnsolicitedRateLimitError to review our Bulk Email Senders Guidelines. – gsmtp
- 421-4.7.28 Gmail has detected an unusual rate of unsolicited mail originating from your DKIM domain. To protect our users from spam, mail sent from your domain has been temporarily rate limited. Please visit https://support.google.com/mail/?p=UnsolicitedRateLimitError to review our Bulk Email Senders Guidelines. – gsmtp
As an Email Service Provider (ESP), these bounce codes are helpful for us to quick troubleshoot any issue. We also brand all of our sending details which means that the URLs, DKIM, and SPF domains are all unique per a account.
For Campaign Deputy accounts, there is no change needed for any of these changes as we have been compliant with the DKIM/SPF and one-click unsubscribe requirements since 2017.
