The flagging and blocking of legitimate messages from domains with
good standing is not a general problem. But it is a malpractice
primarily of Microsoft and Google.
The reason is that they have clear financial incentives to sabotage
communications in order to press people into using their services.
Given the centrality of email to daily life and business, big-tech
service providers do cause a clear harm by their actions, and what is
needed is are successful legal prosecutions against them for that
practice.
It's an interesting problem. In days of yore, the Royal Mail and US
Postal Service had special powers of state that made letters sent
effectively certain to be delivered. Interfering with the mail was a
very serious criminal/federal offence. At one time in British law, the
mere act of posting a letter was considered tantamount it having been
received, and to this day many legal processes derive from that, even
though the delivery has gone electronic.
The principle agent problem is that as service providers they are not
impartial in their actions. While they may superficially seem to have
every right to block communications to users within their domains "to
prevent spam", or on "security" grounds, they are intermediaries whose
good faith is not ascertainable. Even if they were acting in good
faith it is a classic example of iatrogenic over-reach of "care", by
which nefarious motives may be veiled by an appeal to seemingly
reasonable "security" policies.
While their Terms of Service clearly make no warranty for delivery of
important messages, this is not an acceptable level of service. We
have hobbled along in this legal no-mans-land for 30 years at least.
Therefore I see the problem as more akin to a net-neutrality issue and
is more subtle as a rights issue than it first appears. How can big
service providers with an obvious conflict of interest and incentive
to sabotage legitimate communications be made to play ball?
Technically we can prove, from mail relay messages, that communications
have been delivered to the boundary of their digital estate, so the
technical basis for a legal intervention is there. Part of the problem
is that recipients who are harmed need to coordinate with senders that
experience harm. And both parties need the basic technical competence
to know and prove that they are being harmed.
Your mileage and anecdata may vary, but I maintain multiple mail
domains for projects and businesses in Europe I've set up for people
which send dozens of messages per day from self-hosted servers.
Almost none of these have any problems. The only problems people
report come from recipients on Microsoft and Google systems.
I sometimes politely ask people explicitly to white-list addresses, or
carefully explain why a non-Google/Microsoft alternative address is a
more professional and reliable contact point.
Nontheless, the 'crimes' of these big companies causes me tangible
cost and I do with there was a legal remedy for it.
The reason is that they have clear financial incentives to sabotage communications in order to press people into using their services.
Given the centrality of email to daily life and business, big-tech service providers do cause a clear harm by their actions, and what is needed is are successful legal prosecutions against them for that practice.
It's an interesting problem. In days of yore, the Royal Mail and US Postal Service had special powers of state that made letters sent effectively certain to be delivered. Interfering with the mail was a very serious criminal/federal offence. At one time in British law, the mere act of posting a letter was considered tantamount it having been received, and to this day many legal processes derive from that, even though the delivery has gone electronic.
The principle agent problem is that as service providers they are not impartial in their actions. While they may superficially seem to have every right to block communications to users within their domains "to prevent spam", or on "security" grounds, they are intermediaries whose good faith is not ascertainable. Even if they were acting in good faith it is a classic example of iatrogenic over-reach of "care", by which nefarious motives may be veiled by an appeal to seemingly reasonable "security" policies.
While their Terms of Service clearly make no warranty for delivery of important messages, this is not an acceptable level of service. We have hobbled along in this legal no-mans-land for 30 years at least.
Therefore I see the problem as more akin to a net-neutrality issue and is more subtle as a rights issue than it first appears. How can big service providers with an obvious conflict of interest and incentive to sabotage legitimate communications be made to play ball?
Technically we can prove, from mail relay messages, that communications have been delivered to the boundary of their digital estate, so the technical basis for a legal intervention is there. Part of the problem is that recipients who are harmed need to coordinate with senders that experience harm. And both parties need the basic technical competence to know and prove that they are being harmed.
Your mileage and anecdata may vary, but I maintain multiple mail domains for projects and businesses in Europe I've set up for people which send dozens of messages per day from self-hosted servers. Almost none of these have any problems. The only problems people report come from recipients on Microsoft and Google systems.
I sometimes politely ask people explicitly to white-list addresses, or carefully explain why a non-Google/Microsoft alternative address is a more professional and reliable contact point.
Nontheless, the 'crimes' of these big companies causes me tangible cost and I do with there was a legal remedy for it.