I didn’t notice when I stopped receiving my Google Alerts. It’s one of those things you pass over until one day you’re all “why didn’t I get something on this?” I assumed my subscription had run out and I’d have to set them up again – which I found to be very annoying.
But today, I found out that GMail thinks Google Alerts are spam.
To the service’s credit, GMail has also identified 1000 other spam messages in the past five days – quite the up-tick, actually, and has promptly removed them to my spam folder.
I didn’t go to my spam folder looking for my Google Alerts. I went there looking for an evaluation from one of my graduate school mentors (Phil Deaver, you rock as a teacher by the way).
While I was digging through the garbage there, I noticed my name, in large comforting letters, staring back at me from an entwinement of male member enlargement promises, banks I don’t go to, and a smattering of foreign alphabets.
(I take no shame in admitting I ego-alert myself. People talk about me online sometimes. Most of the time, it’s good. I also have them set up for several other topics, so there.)
Sure enough, covered in day-old syrupy irony, all of my Google Alerts were landing in my Google-provided email spam folder. And I just laughed and laughed.
I didn’t dig past the 1000 messages to learn just how far back Google tweaked its spam filters so hard it flagged itself. But I missed 61 alerts for “Google” and a few for myself.
If I hadn’t have checked there, I might not have known Meredith Smith’s Top Three Misconceptions of the New Google Analytics Interface, Akbar‘s missive on the Google Salesforce.com deal, or What’s Behind Google’s Sneak Attack Against Microsoft.
But I did know that anyway. I have other ways of gathering information, thank googness.
Most certainly, though, I wouldn’t have known that there’s a Jason Miller who pitches for the Rochester Red Wings, or one that is an executive member of the Meat Industry Action Group.
(There are lots of me’s out there, with every variation of my full name, initials, with middle and without – five writers, one race car driver, one rodeo guy, two actors, and, apparently, a baseball player and meat industry executive. This is why, as soon as I get around to it, I will be Jason Lee Miller, Lord and Baron of Ladonia.)
So anyway, Google, it’s nice you’re tough on spam, but do you need to be so hard on yourself?
