The AI spam is entirely solvable by the platforms. They don’t want to solve it.
Posted on [July 13, 2026](https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/07/13/i-regret-to-say-that-gmail-is-now-a-spam-farm-or-why-you-should-really-get-that-dedicated-email-address-now/)
Posted by [John Scalzi](https://whatever.scalzi.com/author/scalzi/)
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28 Comments](https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/07/13/i-regret-to-say-that-gmail-is-now-a-spam-farm-or-why-you-should-really-get-that-dedicated-email-address-now/#comments)
If you read this site regularly, then you’ll know in the past year there’s been a marked increase in “AI” spam and scams designed to try to con writers (generally, and in the emails that come here, me specifically) into sending money off to strangers for various marketing services. At this point these emails are so predictable that the vast majority of them are immediately sent to my spam folder, and those that still manage to show up in my email proper are recognizable by their subject lines, and are then manually punted into spam unread. It’s all very predictable and I assure you that no one — no one — has ever been so interested in “marketing” my work as these spam emails have claimed to be in these last several months.
Aside from their predictable subject lines and verbiage, there’s also one other thing that these spam emails have in common: 99.9% come from GMail accounts. Once in a blue moon one will come from yahoo or aol or some other general mail service, but they are a rarity. Almost all of them are GMail. One one hand, congrats to Google, I suppose, for cornering the stand-alone email market so completely that even scammers are impressed with its ease of use. Surely that is some sort of sign of success.
On the other hand, if you are a person who relies on GMail as your primary email, this means that if you are trying to send me mail, you now run a much higher chance of being deposited into my spam folder. So *much *of the email I get from GMail accounts at this point is spam that an actual Gmail email, from an actual person, is statistically relatively rare. To be fair, if you write that email to me yourself with your own little fingers, your chances of hitting my actual inbox are pretty decent. But if you used GMail’s onboard “AI” to “help” you write that email, you are likely going directly to the spam folder. The GMail spam filter is now trained to recognize “AI” slop sentences, even those written by GMail itself. Yes, there is probably irony there.
And if you are an actual business concern, using a GMail account to try to reach me about something regarding my books? 100% going to the spam folder. Every time. I’m sorry scammers have ruined things for you, but that’s where we are at the moment.
This fact about GMail gives me no joy. I have had a GMail account basically since they’ve been available, and I use the GMail interface as the front end for my john@scalzi.com email account. It’s handy and useful! But at this point it’s been so swamped with scammers, and so much of the email I get from the domain is junk, that every email I get from GMail now is suspect until proven otherwise. I can’t imagine I am the only writer, or person, in this situation these days.
I have long been a proponent of writers and other creators having their own domains, personalized emails and websites (and other people and businesses too), and while I understand getting one’s own domain and email address is not the easiest thing in the world to set up, even now, the growing spamification of GMail is actually a very *good *reason to do it. For one thing, it’s going to be the difference between tripping my spam filter or getting into my inbox. As noted above, GMail now goes into the spam filter more often than not, and while I try to comb through the spam filter before deleting the whole queue, I will inevitably miss things.
For another thing, an email on a dedicated domain that corresponds to your name/business is going to go a long way to verifying that you are who you say you are, rather than just another spammer — especially now, because lots of spammers are pretending to be writers and other creators or organizations from impostor GMail accounts. I *can’t *assume anymore that someone contacting me from a GMail account is legitimately who they say they are. I mean, I got GMail just yesterday from “Margaret Atwood,” wanting to tell me how much she loved my book as a prelude to trying to suck money out of my wallet. I would love for the actual Margaret Atwood to tell me she enjoyed my work. I rather doubt she needs my money. And I very much doubt that this GMail account was legit. All of which is to say: Please get your own domain for your email. Especially if you are a writer or creator, but even more especially if you are an ongoing business concern. Bluntly, your own domain and email are table stakes for businesses. The spam problem isn’t going to get any better, folks. I’ve been online now for 35 years. It’s never once gotten better since I’ve been here.
Also, don’t use “AI” to write your emails. My spam filter will grab your email really fast if you do. Use your own brain and fingers.
Finally, Google, if you’re listening, and I know you are because you scrape this site enough: Fix your damn GMail spam problem. It’s ruining one of your signature products. Not just for you. For all the rest of us, too.
— JS
28 Comments on “I Regret To Say That GMail is Now a Spam Farm, or, Why You Should Really Get That Dedicated Email Address Now”
Was it Cory Doctorow that said (I’m paraphrasing), “If the product you’re using is free, YOU’RE the product”?
Also, how is it that a company that made its name on search tools has an email tool that can’t find a fucking thing in my email?
I 1000% agree with everything you wrote here. I bought personal domains for myself, my wife and my son years ago, thus avoiding losing email addresses when ISPs and other mail providers changed or went out of business. Like you, I use Gmail as a mail server, but any mail you see from me comes from my own domain.
I don’t understand businesses, and there are many, who HAVE their own domain for a web site but still use their ISP or a free provider for their published email address. (But then there are businesses whose online presence is a Facebook page…)
The identity theft is what gets me. I’ve had two emails now purporting to come from a real-life editor at a decent press. OSINT says that person is no longer at that press (probably moved on, it happens), and of course the email address is sketch — aol.com rather than GMail this time.
If I were that editor I would be LIVID. #
As a (one-time) expert on spam, I keep track of the spam I get to my servers. Yes, I run my own mail servers, and don’t generally recommend it unless you think fondly of sendmail.cf and aren’t entirely sure the m4 macros will catch on.
Almost all of the nigerian spam I get is from google. Not always as gmail, but through various virtual machines as well. If I get spam and it has originated from google, there’s a greater than 99% chance it’s nigerian spam. But I also get it from aws VMs, and uSoft’s outlook.
I also get a bunch of phishing spams and about half of those go to hostmaster, which I think shows great desperation.
In addition to various public DNSBLs, I run my own automated one.
We could have stopped spam at the beginning. Collectively, we chose not to — because AOL, Hotmail, and others, were far more interested in having number of users to present, not providing a better experience for everyone. The same thing happened with UseNET, at least.
A different perspective.
I had personal domains for myself, spouse and kids for over 20 years and having them worked exactly as you suggest. Spam was nearly non-existent and the control was useful even though these were for personal use, not a business.
However, I gave them up and now use both gmail and iCloud because the back end of these private domains, the IT sort of management, became a nightmare and the customer service through both Godaddy and Network Solutions was either non-existent or less familiar with the product than I was.
I am not a business. I don’t have an IT department to handle problems and unless you do have an IT department, having a private domain, while sexy and fun, can be horrible to manage. Perhaps you will have better luck and I hope you do. - “The GMail spam filter is now trained to recognize “AI” slop sentences, even those written by GMail itself. Yes, there is probably irony there.”
Google’s no stranger to irony there. Plenty of times I’ve had mail from Google itself end up in gmail spam.
Unfortunately, as Lauren Weinstein (Privacy Forum) and others have increasingly documented, the current Google leadership appears perfectly willing to trash all their signature products in a fit of rampant (and apparently ignorant) greed. They aren’t just trashing Gmail. They’re also trashing Search. And a Google without either of those products is no longer going to be the advertising giant on which they build their business.
I’ve had my own domain since 1994. Your post reminded me to check that I am sending from that domain rather than from gmail.com. Thanks.
I use GMail for my consolidated inbox for a few different (non-GMail) accounts. The other inboxes happily forward my mail & I can manage my various ventures from 1 inbox. Or at least that used to work. Now GMail will often “helpfully” flag emails as potential spam & not forward them, including emails from Google Workspace & Google Docs notifications. Also, the error message it gives is labyrinthian, so it’s a real pain to have to monitor those other inboxes & find the emails that I actually do want to see.
Just more enshittification…
sigh
Why can’t we have nice things that, you know, work? - Ironically, Gmail keeps blocking mail from my personal domain to my friends Gmail address because it suddenly decided it doesn’t trust that address anymore. It worked fine for a long stretch and then started spitting my emails back at me. There some kind of authentication I have to do from the mail server level, and it works for a while and then goes right back to blocking me.
I usually use my gmail addresses (I have several) as a dumping ground for newsletter signups to get the lead magnet. My job actually REQUIRES me to have a Gmail account to access the platform where the work gets done, which is probably a preference of the unnamed “client” we do the work for.
Just BAN India, Pakistan & Nigira from being allowed to use gmail
I’ve been using Fastmail for many years with my own domain name and I’ve been really happy with them… they have made it very easy to set up an account using a personalized domain.
https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/360058753394-Custom-domains-with-Fastmail - I, too, have had GMail since the early days (2004, when you had to have an invitation to open an account), but have found it less useful for any number of reasons. In addition to the spam from GMail addresses you mention, it appears that GMail’s once-excellent spam filters have taken a turn for the worse of late, so even obviously spammy emails with subjects like “Elon’s investing in this–are you?” are making it through to my primary inbox.
Unfortunately, Google has stopped caring about services it offers that don’t directly generate significant revenue. GMail generates a ton of INDIRECT revenue, bringing users to Google services overall, but management is chasing Wall Street quarterly numbers now. That change really took place once Larry and Sergei stepped back from being hands on.
I’m a Xoogler (ex-Googler) who was there at the time, and saw everything changing. It’s a real shame – the old long term view that creating valuable things would eventually find a way to pay off, and which created a firehose of money pouring into Google, is gone.
On the other hand, my wife’s and my stock grants that we never sold are WAY up now, making our retirement even more comfortable. I try not to feel guilty about profiting from a great company’s failings, and… mostly succeed.
Is my following strategy legit or too upfront for American taste?
In order to avoid going into the spam folder I try to write what I actually want in the first or second sentence of an e-mail.
Then I will try to order my e-mail in a way that the further you read the more unimportant the information that I deliver becomes.
(And yes, I have my own domainS. mifuss.ch and mifuss.de)
I used to write programs that sent emails. The ‘From’ field is just another blank that will take any value. Spam from ‘Gmail’ means nothing.
Honestly, if you are an actual business concern using a GMail account, to me you’re not really a serious business concern. Real businesses have their own domain names and their email comes from those domain names. If your business email is
mybiz@gmail.com, you’re not really that serious, imnsvho. - You just realized that. It’s been like that for at least the past ten years with Googles blessing.
I wish Google would fix its spam problem as well. They’re the new Yahoo, it seems.
As to getting email that is AI slop (or sending it for that matter), sadly, people are lazy and will use this flotsam.
Almost all of my Gmail spam is from Screen Rant, which apparently subscribes you when you argue with SW fan boys who think Andor is the “worst SW ever”. Easily fixed.
I never got spam at my work Gmail until 5he tech d3pt d3cided we all needed to use AI to do things that will eventually replace teachers ( I am teacher adjacent), now it’s neverending. Thanks tech dept.
Meanwhile on my ancient not Gmail, I’ve been inundated with graphically explicit and often violent spam, which I suspect is AI by my comments about the current state of SA survivors living through 2026. But I don’t know how to determine that, I just never check my spam f9lder anymore.
As @Neil Hornbeck noted above, the writer can set the “from” address to anything they want. But the headers (which might take some spelunking to get follow) will show which server it actually came from.
I’ve been on Gmail since it was invite only. I also have an address from my ISP, Verizon, which is run by… AOL… And an outlook dot com address which I use for very few things and which gets almost no spam.
In the past month I’ve suddenly started getting spam from sites (well, with From fields) that claim to be selling various types of guns, ammo, and other shooting supplies. And while, yes, I do own guns and go to the range monthly, why did this start now and not after Trump’s “Many fine people” comment that got me interested in knocking the rust off my shooting skills?
I have more trouble with spam from hotmail accounts than gmail. It got so bad that I created a rule to delete all email from hotmail. The only person I know with a hotmail account is my wife and she doesn’t use it anymore.
It has long been apparent to me that AI is doing to social media what spam did to email. The news that AI also dilutes the utility of email is … depressingly predictable.
I’ve heard it said that the purpose of propaganda is not just to promote messages that are first useful to the state but to divorce all discourse from truth and evidence-based opinion. And here we are in a world where so much internet content is created every day that it defies analysis or useful consideration. The vital messages are lost in the swamp.
I frequently reflect on the social media prophets/commentators described by Orson Scott Card in the Ender saga. Orson seems to have missed the fact that his prophets would be drowned by imitators desperately looking for a profit angle.
BTW: I started my vanity domain & stable email address when AT&T suddenly dropped the home.com domain and all my email rocketed into the existential void. Great advice!
A great reason to have your own domain is that your email is not captive to one provider.
My house has had a domain since 1996. (The email attached to this message is one that I originally got to be detached from that.) I self-hosted my email until around 2011. I then moved it to Google because the big email providers refused to accept email from a server on a residential IP address; no amount of attempting to get on a whitelist helped, they flat-out banned those address ranges. But I could pick it up and move it to another provider (I’m considering Proton Mail) without having to pay the price of losing an address that I’ve had for 30 years.
@Nortally
I believe John meant to give the advice to get a
mail@yourname.comaddress.The domain behind @ being yours. #
Hi- I use GMail accts as backup and for various online bullshit, but it would be nice to have a non-US based service for emails, too.
I feel like we’ve met in person but don’t know exactly where. I used to live in Dayton. Anyway, hi!
I own a retail shop (high end audio) and I’m constantly getting people impersonating accounts receivable for brands I carry. They’re always really easy to spot, and I’ve begun replying to their requests for outstanding amount due with a meme picture of Dr. Evil with, “One Billion Dollars.” as the caption. I reply all since they bcc a lot of people. Gotta try and have fun with it!
Many come from gmail, but also aol (lol), hotmail, yahoo, and a lot of unrelated company email addresses – naughty employees clicking on attachments they should not!