policies
I’ve got just a tiny slice of data for you today. I took the top 100 (US) mailbox provider domains, as measured by mail sent to them, and looked for DMARC records. Do they have a DMARC record? And if so, what is the DMARC policy? Things look good from this angle. Seventy of those top 100 domains do indeed have some sort of DMARC policy in place. Of those that have a DMARC policy in place, just over 60% of those domains have a restrictive (p=quarantine or p=reject policy). This is particularly timely given that Gmail’s upcoming requirements say you should not impersonate (send as) gmail.com in your from address. Based on how internet service providers (ISPs) and mailbox providers (MBPs) are moving to respect DMARC policy, that restriction also applies to a good two-thirds of the top MBP domains. Remember: Your from address should only contain a domain
Onet is Poland’s number two mailbox provider (behind Wirtualna Polska). Onet’s domains subscriber email domains include op.pl, onet.pl, vp.pl, poczta.onet.pl, autograf.pl, buziaczek.pl, onet.com.pl and amorki.pl.And with all this talk of subscriber inactivity policies (starting with Gmail’s recent announcements) I’ve been looking to catalog account inactivity details whenever possible. And Onet just sent me an email letting me know about the policy (and that my test account is long dormant):Due to the lack of logging in to your onet.pl e-mail account for a period exceeding 12 months, we would like to inform you that in accordance with the provisions of the Onet Poczta Service Regulations (point 7.3 letter i), your account and all its contents in 30 days it will be permanently deleted (without the possibility of recovery), which will affect all services associated with it.If you want to keep this account, all you need to do is log in to
As mentioned before, Google’s planning to disable and delete accounts that have been inactive for two years or longer; they promise not to start doing this until December; they have been warning every Google user of this change via email; and they promise to further notify impacted users before disabling specific accounts.Some folks are up in arms about this change in Google policy. According to CNBC, “Google’s plan to purge inactive accounts isn’t sitting well with some users.” But the truth is, Google has kind of been going overboard notifying everybody, and they’re clearly still in the midst of that notification process.I personally have received twenty three individual email notifications of this Google policy change so far. Perhaps I have more Google accounts than the average person, but it sure seems to me like they’re notifying everyone. I’d be surprised if anyone were really caught off guard by this policy
Okay, so it should be obvious to everyone nowadays that email addresses die. They go dormant because the users on the other end of that mailbox have given up on that mailbox; haven’t checked it in a long amount of time, for whatever reason. That’s an easy question to answer.The harder question is, when do email addresses die? Or when do internet service providers (ISPs) and mailbox providers (MBPs) deactivate inactive email accounts? That varies greatly. By ISP/MBP and by scenario. And not every mailbox provider wants to publicize this information. But here’s what we do know.Google recently announced that they’ll retire dormant accounts after two years of inactivity, and have been emailing every single Google user about this to let them know.Comcast indicates here that if you’re no longer a paying Comcast customer, you get to keep your email address — as long as you accessed it at least