Ask HN: Is Spam getting worse or is Gmail getting worse?

10 points by adamtaylor_13 5 days ago | 10 comments

Over the past couple of months I've noticed that number of spam emails landing in my inbox has increased by quite a bit. I keep a very tidy inbox, so it's pretty easy for me to notice them and mark them as spam. But I'm curious: is Google just getting worse at detecting spam, or is the spam somehow evolving?

For example, I just got this email:

Sender: william_brown_318@rofopifj.dravixa.space Subject: the wagon is in

The body contains tons of literal HTML tags that weren't parsed into actual HTML. Not sure if it was sent as a text mime-type or what, but it takes all of 2 whole seconds for me to mentally note that this is spam.

How is this getting through more often these days?

drewp 5 hours ago |

I accept mail from the wild and reject bad SPF or bad DKIM.

It seems like something happened around 2026-05-01 (https://bigasterisk.com/post/delivered-email-rate-2026.png) where it became easier for spammers to make technically legitimately deliverable mails. Or my postfix is setup wrong.

Note "spf=pass" and "dkim=pass" in these headers:

  Return-Path: <walmartpoints@liftstores.com>
  X-Original-To: drewp@bigasterisk.com
  Delivered-To: drewp@bigasterisk.com
  Authentication-Results: prime; spf=pass (sender SPF authorized)
     smtp.mailfrom=liftstores.com (client-ip=103.176.193.110;
     helo=atompoint.bikerspage.com;
     envelope-from=walmartpoints@liftstores.com; receiver=<UNKNOWN>)
  Authentication-Results: bigasterisk.com;
      dkim=pass (2048-bit key; unprotected) header.d=liftstores.com header.i=walmartpoints@liftstores.com header.a=rsa-sha256 header.s=mtacsacc60r7j header.b=Ntcr2+R1;
      dkim-atps=neutral
  Received: from send1.liftstores.com (atompoint.bikerspage.com [103.176.193.110])
      by bigasterisk.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D58B21A209B
      for <drewp@bigasterisk.com>; Fri, 15 May 2026 17:44:55 -0700 (PDT)
  DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; s=mtacsacc60r7j; d=liftstores.com;
   h=To:Reply-To:MIME-Version:From:Content-Type:List-Unsubscribe:Subject:
   Message-ID:Date; i=walmartpoints@liftstores.com;
   bh=2MNA1dmylVOMnvzWVYrwOi/6KCaFtBhIq3AtC5UbTrQ=;
   b=Ntcr2+R1Rvjce4/DYtKkfN6xtaBdKWawc/vcWU72jUBePh...

dormento 4 days ago |

Unfortunately, this is one of those questions that can be jokingly answered with an inclusive "or". The two things can be true at the same time.

(Just like their web search, which I'm pretty sure had to die so they could prop up their AI offerings).

cyanydeez 4 days ago | |

google search died before AI. It became obvious to google that to make money, they needed to not offer the best answer to a query, because then you'd just click on the ads.

punyaatloomavi 4 days ago |

OK, I had not really noticed this but now when you say this, I see a pattern yes think I do see more spams in my inbox lately and I thought maybe it’s me giving out my email everywhere.

JojoFatsani 5 days ago |

They seem to have buried the report spam and report phishing functions in right-click menus. They used to be very easy to hit. I'm sure that is reducing signals to the spam algorithm.

is_true 3 days ago |

For me the opposite is happening. More emails are getting flagged that aren't spam.

SyntaxErrorist 5 days ago |

It feels like we are hitting a point where AI generated variations are scaling faster that the traditional bayesian filters can adapt.

drsalt 5 days ago |

dude they can't do something as simple as sort by subject or sender. you think they're going to block spam?

dhruv3006 4 days ago |

WhatsApp is so so spammy.

PaulHoule 5 days ago |

Yes.