wiki:faq/email/avoid-forward

Please don't forward your email to another provider

Our servers are configured so that, if you want, you can forward email sent to your email account on our servers to an email address on a different server, such as gmail.com.

This desire is understandable: we should be publicizing our own domains and not be providing free advertising to Google by publicly displaying gmail.com addresses.

It's also understandable to desire one email program that shows all of our email messages, even ones sent to different email addresses. Who wants to login to multiple web mail programs?

The Problem

The problem is that forwarding your email from one address to another is not a good technical solution to this problem and there are a few reasons why:

  • Authentication problems: In an effort to stop fake email messages, many providers advertise to the world which servers should be allowed to send email that claims to be from their domain name. For example, if an email claims to be from an @yahoo.com or @gmail.com address, then it must be sent from a Yahoo or Gmail server. However, if someone sends a message from a @yahoo.com or @gmail.com address to your May First account, and then our server forwards it to another provider, that provider will detect that it was not sent by Yahoo and Gmail. And, it will not get delivered.
  • May First gets tagged as a spammer: If you forward your email, we will forward all the email to the destination address. Other email providers, who have spam policies that will block all messages from servers that they think are spammers, detect that we are sending spam and will block us from delivering your email. In other words, they will refuse to delivery any email, including legitimate email, because some of the email being sent is spam.

The Solution

The best solution to this problem is to have email delivered to your May First accounts, rather than forwarding your email to another email address (directions for creating email accounts).

If you already have an email client that you know and love (be it a webmail client or desktop client) you should continue using that email client! Just because you deliver your email to May First/People Link does not mean that you have to use our webmail system! On the contrary. Most modern email programs, including webmail programs, allow you to specify what are known as a "POP" or "IMAP" servers (external servers that can co-exist with your existing email settings). You can configure your email client to simply pull in your email from our servers directly (you might be interested in the main information required to configure an email program to use "IMAP" or "POP" email servers). Then, your May First/People Link email and your existing email will all land in your inbox, just as it does when you forward your email.

If you want to use the Gmail web client to access your May First mail, there are directions available here.

Please use this method! It will ensure that you receive all of your email, it will avoid having our servers blocked by anyone, and it will guarantee that your email, at least in the initial delivery, is being handled by a provider politically sensitive to your mission.

Before ending this FAQ, since gmail.com was named above, the question remains: why use Google at all? Why support their corporate/ad-focused model? May First supports an excellent webmail program and supports a number of desktop email clients (see directions for configuring email clients).

By using these tools instead of Google you are investing your time and energy into a community the revolves around free software and progressive politics rather than building a community that revolves around turning your emails, searches, videos watched and web browsing habits into a commodity that is sold to advertisers, and most likely openly shared with governments.

Last modified 2 years ago Last modified on Apr 19, 2022, 8:51:14 AM