Google and Yahoo are tightening up their sender requirements for email authentication and spam prevention. Here’s what you need to know ahead of the rules change in February 2024.

What’s changing?

Google and Yahoo have announced new rules for bulk senders to further reduce email spam and phishing. The rules are based on pre-existing guidelines that are already considered industry best practice: email domain authentication and spam prevention.

From February 2024, these email industry giants will be enforcing the rules to protect inboxes from unwanted emails.

If you’ve been worried about how these changes will affect your business, you’ll be pleased to know that Email for Trello mailboxes meet most of the requirements by default.

Who is affected?

This announcement only applies if you use your own email domain to send emails. Email for Trello Power-Up users have two email address options for sending and receiving mail to and from their board:

1. Board email address. A unique board email address is assigned to your Trello board when you activate the Power-Up. You can edit it to reflect your team and business, for example: info@yourcompany.sendboard.com. If you use a board address, SendBoard takes care of the new regulations from Gmail and Yahoo, so you don’t need to do anything.

2. Custom email address. If you use a custom email address in Email for Trello (i.e. info@yourcompany.com), that means you’re sending from your own domain, so you should take note of the changes outlined below.

What do I need to do?

As a sender, there are three main things you need to do to stay compliant with the new regulations.

1. Authenticate your email

Senders need to strengthen their email authentication methods in line with the following three industry best practices.

• SPF prevents spammers from impersonating your domain and damaging your reputation as a sender. If you’re using the Email for Trello Power-Up, SendBoard takes care of this for you. Learn more about SPF in our help center.

• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) confirms the identity of the sender and makes sure your emails can’t be intercepted. SendBoard also takes care of this for Email for Trello Power-Up users. Visit our help center for more details about DKIM.

• DMARC helps you monitor who’s using your email domain and generates a report of all the different people (that you may not even be aware of!) that are sending from your domain. Enabling DMARC is only required for businesses sending over 5,000 emails per day but even if you aren’t, it’s still good to set it up to see who might be using your email domain.

2. Make unsubscribing easy

As a recipient, opting out of email communication should only take one click – and senders should process all unsubscribe requests within two days. Note that Email for Trello does not have a built-in unsubscribe feature, so any email replies with “unsubscribe” should also be honored as an opt-out.

3. Only send emails people want

To improve protection from unsolicited email, senders must only send relevant email and always keep their spam complaint rate low.

Better email standards, safer inboxes

Although many senders will already be compliant with Google and Yahoo’s new regulations, the changes will ultimately benefit both senders and receivers, making sure our inboxes stay safe and spam-free.

From February 2024, the rules will be enforced for bulk senders (those sending over 5,000 emails per day) – but these industry-standard protections are worth reviewing, no matter the size of your email campaigns.