Gmail 20th birthday: It was launched in response to a user complaint.
Twenty years ago, on April 1, 2004, Google announced the launch of its email service Gmail. In its press release, the company said email and not search was the number one online activity, adding that Google was creating a search-based webmail service in response to a user complaint. Gmail soon emerged on top, and 20 years later, on Gmail anniversary, the service boasts of 1.2 billion users. The original Gmail press release quoted Google co-founder Sergey Brin as saying, "If a Google user has a problem with email, well, so do we."
"Unlike other free webmail services, Gmail is built on the idea that users should never have to file or delete a message, or struggle to find an email they've sent or received," it further said.
As Gmail became the undisputed king of email, users started flagging problems of the number of unwanted messages that come their way. These are mostly marketing messages, newsletter subscriptions and unadulterated spam.
So, Google announced new security rules for bulk senders that come into play from today (April 1, 2024), as Gmail comes out of its teen years.
According to Forbes, email marketers are required to undergo through strict authentication if they want to keep sending emails in bulk. Google defines bulk senders as those who have sent "close to 5,000 messages" to Gmail accounts in any 24-hour period.
The new rules will reject emails from bulk senders unless they meet new authentication requirements. If marketers hit the threshold of 5,000 emails once, they will be permanently classified as bulk senders.
Google has ensured that they are not able to get around the new rules by sending their emails from several subdomains. As per the news rules, all messages from the same primary domain are counted regardless of the subdomains implemented.