Mail bouncing to gmail

[#1]

Yes I know what a domain name is, but I assumed Plusnet were selling off sections of their own.  So what do they look like when you buy one, would you get something like yourcompany.co.uk?  Surely they could also sell yourcompany.plus.net?  Then we could keep our email addresses, even if it means running our own mail servers.

Yeah Google aren't too bright.  They have a foot in (or own) Android don't they?  Every new version is tighter and tighter and half the programs don't run any more because of "security concerns".  Fair enough, I have an Android 4.5 phone and it's full of holes, in fact I gave up on it, I couldn't keep the every 10 seconds adverts off the screen.  But then I had an Android 7 phone which was wonderful.  But then I got a 9 (which I upgraded to 11), and both 9 and 11 got in the way of everything.

[#2]

Where did you get the idea that Plusnet were selling subdomains of their main domain?

They no longer sell domains and have stopped supplying email for new signups.

They have also removed the option to continue using a Plusnet email address when you leave Plusnet.

[#3]

Somebody in this thread said they sold domains.  It made sense they would be their own.

Actually, what is required (external to my property) for me to run a mail server? Is there anything to stop me setting it up now?  How do I get @Username.plus.com to go to a mail server at my IP address?

This plan to stop email was considered a year ago and presumably rejected, it was supposed to possibly stop during 2022.  so hopefully it will be rejected a second time.  Kinda like Sturgeon's independance malarky.

[#4]

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@MisterW wrote:

The problem is that we dont know (and gmail wont say) exactly what they are doing.

As has been said earlier, SPF & DKIM are NOT mandatory.

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See the 4th paragraph  https://support.google.com/a/answer/33786?hl=en

[#5]

Google can go do whatever they want to be out of step with the rest of the world if they want to.  The relevant RFCs (recognised international standards) for these protocols state that they are not mandatory requirements in the implementation of message relays.

Specifically the standard states that the absence of a SPF directive should be treated as a soft fail and the message should be accepted NOT rejected.

In this respect Gmail is twice wrong...

1. Mandating that there should be a SPF directive
2. Taking the wrong course of action in the event of a soft fail on verification

PS: I found the reference to Google can't be wrong ...

Gmail is not badly broken as literally millions of users will confirm. If emails are being rejected due to SPF or DKIM issues it will be due to your sent emails probably failing to meet settings that meet the gmail spam filter threshold .requirements.

 "

[#6]

The link posted to Google's non-compliant rules leads to - https://support.google.com/a/answer/10683907 - which states...

Should I use ~all or -all?

When an SPF record includes ~all (softfail qualifier), receiving servers typically accept messages from senders that aren't in your SPF record, but mark them as suspicious.If

Clearly Google cannot even comply with their own support documentation.

[#7]

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@sunnyrio wrote:

Somebody in this thread said they sold domains.  It made sense they would be their own.

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I think the reference came from @Townman:

@Townman wrote:
If you have a domain name hosted by Plusnet, you can get a SPF record inserted for that domain name.

This just means if you have an existing domain registered/hosted by us then you could use that. It would be your own domain name, rather than username.plus.com as that’s ours.

Unfortunately we no longer register or host new domains and haven’t done so for quite a while. Our domain services are legacy and only offered to those who already have an existing domain on their account.

@sunnyrio wrote:

Actually, what is required (external to my property) for me to run a mail server? Is there anything to stop me setting it up now?  How do I get @Username.plus.com to go to a mail server at my IP address?

Fairly sure it’s not possible for you to run your own mail server with username.plus.com as that’s our domain, but should be do-able though if you buy your own. I don’t know 100% how to, so I’ll let someone else better advise.

[edit]

@sunnyrio - Been thinking about this more. Are the emails, including those links you’ve mentioned, sent fine if you use the portal at https://webmail.plus.net? 

[#8]

Hmmm it is a huge stretch of the imagination from “if you have one” to “you can get one” so as to imply that Plusnet [still] sells domain names.

The fact is that hosted domain names were not all sold / provided by Plusnet amongst my referrals, there are domain names provided by third parties. Note clearly though Plusnet no longer facilitates new hosting.

[#9]

I am not a user of Gmail and am not suggesting that they are the go-to email service provider. I am however trying to look at this pragmatically and clarify the facts. I’m sure that I will be corrected if I have this all wrong.

My understanding is that the latest Google requirements exceed the internationally minimum requirements but are met by, presumably Gmail themselves and ‘professional’ standard email service providers. Presumably Gmail have done this to keep as much spam as possible off their network.

I don’t know much about the Plusnet email options but suggest that whilst the original unencrypted email settings still meet the international standard, they no longer meet the latest Google requirements. However, I use the Plusnet SMPT server to send messages using the latest recommended encrypted settungs and whilst I send very few to Gmail recipients, I am not aware of one to a Gmail address being rejected. So does this come down to client settings?

[#10]

It depends what's in the email.  I never get them bounced just sending some text.  But a couple of links, or a reply to a long email which might have links in it, or sending to three friends on gmail at once, that tips the scale of spam.

Moderator’s Note

Repeat of complete previous post removed as per Forum rules

[#11]

@sunnyrio 

So that suggests to me that it could depend on how close to the spam trigger threshold the basic email is without the links etc.

[#12]

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@Baldrick1 wrote:

So that suggests to me that it could depend on how close to the spam trigger threshold the basic email is without the links etc.

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Just normal links to a web site we were discussing, nothing even remotely dodgy, so Gmail is taking the lack of security plus a link to mean spam.  Ridiculous.  I shall avoid Gmail at all costs.

[#13]

@Baldrick1

For clarification this not to do with end to end encryption of the server connection, as effected by the use of ports 993 & 995 with SSL/TLS inbound servers and STARTTLS on port 587 for the outbound server.

The issue relates to determining if a given SMTP server is an authentic sender for a given domain name - as in a SPF rule. If such a rule does not exist (which is not mandatory) then the RFC requirement is “soft fail” and ACCEPT delivery, with an optional spam advisory to the recipient.

Gmail is incorrectly applying a hard fail and rejecting delivery.

Unfortunately we cannot avoid Gmail if that is where a receipt’s email are being harvested!

[#14]

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@Townman wrote:
@Baldrick1

For clarification this not to do with end to end encryption of the server connection, as effected by the use of ports 993 & 995 with SSL/TLS inbound servers and STARTTLS on port 587 for the outbound server.

The issue relates to determining if a given SMTP server is an authentic sender for a given domain name - as in a SPF rule. If such a rule does not exist (which is not mandatory) then the RFC requirement is “soft fail” and ACCEPT delivery, with an optional spam advisory to the recipient.

Gmail is incorrectly applying a hard fail and rejecting delivery.

Unfortunately we cannot avoid Gmail if that is where a receipt’s email are being harvested!

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Actually it's not invoking a hard fail, or all mails would be bounced.  It's only adding to the spam score.

[#15]

That’s confusing then - the title of your topic states “bouncing” implying rejection as spam which matches what has been seen and reported before.

Raising the spam risk score is legitimate, but rejection on the associated SPF soft fail is not.