Jason Unger

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Check out what happened to a recent Google Calendar reminder I got for an upcoming meeting:

Because Gmail thinks that these automated reminders (from calendar-notification@google.com) are phishing emails, it removes the ability to click on any of the links. This prevents you from unsubscribing to the notifications and checking out more event details.

Gmail also throws these messages into your spam folder, making it pretty useless as a reminder.

Google: left hand, meet right hand.

Part of being on press release lists means getting emails you don't necessarily care to read.

I get a lot of those.

But this afternoon, I got 73 emails from Gateway — in less than 2 hours.

These emails weren't current. This is the first line from the first email received:
"News Release Issued: January 31, 2005 12:00 AM EST"

Wow, way to go Gateway. Spam the people on your mailing list. That's a great way to get good press.

Just about two hours after the first email arrived, a "real" email came explaining the situation:

Gateway Email List GlitchGateway News
Thu, Sep 6, 2007 at 5:35 PM
To: gateway@mail.mediaroom.com
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Gateway News Alerts email list.

During routine system upgrades made today an unexpected error caused the Gateway email list to receive a backlog of previously sent emails. The error occurred at 5:56pm EST and was corrected by 7:00pm EST. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and are taking steps to ensure that this cannot occur in the future.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact MediaRoom Support at mediaroomsupport@prnewswire.com or (800) 654-7863.

I understand that mistakes happen — one time I accidentally sent out the wrong email newsletter to my subscribers — but 73 emails in two hours? That's not a glitch, that's spam.

Way to go Gateway. Way to go.

Ever since my recent slashdotting, redditing and other high-profile pickups, I've been getting comment spam up to the wazoo.

I know that there has to be some sort of mechanism out there to either block or prevent or do a better job of filtering out spam, but how?

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