I Regret To Say That GMail is Now a Spam Farm, or, Why You Should Really Get That Dedicated Email Address Now | Whatever

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I Regret To Say That GMail is Now a Spam Farm, or, Why You Should Really Get That Dedicated Email Address Now

Posted on July 13, 2026

Posted by John Scalzi

28 Comments

If you read this site regularly, then you’ll know in the past year there’s been a marked increase in "AI" spam and scams designed to try to con writers (generally, and in the emails that come here, me specifically) into sending money off to strangers for various marketing services. At this point these emails are so predictable that the vast majority of them are immediately sent to my spam folder, and those that still manage to show up in my email proper are recognizable by their subject lines, and are then manually punted into spam unread. It’s all very predictable and I assure you that no one — no one — has ever been so interested in "marketing" my work as these spam emails have claimed to be in these last several months.

Aside from their predictable subject lines and verbiage, there’s also one other thing that these spam emails have in common: 99.9% come from GMail accounts. Once in a blue moon one will come from yahoo or aol or some other general mail service, but they are a rarity. Almost all of them are GMail. One one hand, congrats to Google, I suppose, for cornering the stand-alone email market so completely that even scammers are impressed with its ease of use. Surely that is some sort of sign of success.

On the other hand, if you are a person who relies on GMail as your primary email, this means that if you are trying to send me mail, you now run a much higher chance of being deposited into my spam folder. So much of the email I get from GMail accounts at this point is spam that an actual Gmail email, from an actual person, is statistically relatively rare. To be fair, if you write that email to me yourself with your own little fingers, your chances of hitting my actual inbox are pretty decent. But if you used GMail’s onboard "AI" to "help" you write that email, you are likely going directly to the spam folder. The GMail spam filter is now trained to recognize "AI" slop sentences, even those written by GMail itself. Yes, there is probably irony there.

And if you are an actual business concern, using a GMail account to try to reach me about something regarding my books? 100% going to the spam folder. Every time. I’m sorry scammers have ruined things for you, but that’s where we are at the moment.

This fact about GMail gives me no joy. I have had a GMail account basically since they’ve been available, and I use the GMail interface as the front end for my john@scalzi.com email account. It’s handy and useful! But at this point it’s been so swamped with scammers, and so much of the email I get from the domain is junk, that every email I get from GMail now is suspect until proven otherwise. I can’t imagine I am the only writer, or person, in this situation these days.

I have long been a proponent of writers and other creators having their own domains, personalized emails and websites (and other people and businesses too), and while I understand getting one’s own domain and email address is not the easiest thing in the world to set up, even now, the growing spamification of GMail is actually a very good reason to do it. For one thing, it’s going to be the difference between tripping my spam filter or getting into my inbox. As noted above, GMail now goes into the spam filter more often than not, and while I try to comb through the spam filter before deleting the whole queue, I will inevitably miss things.

For another thing, an email on a dedicated domain that corresponds to your name/business is going to go a long way to verifying that you are who you say you are, rather than just another spammer — especially now, because lots of spammers are pretending to be writers and other creators or organizations from impostor GMail accounts. I can’t assume anymore that someone contacting me from a GMail account is legitimately who they say they are. I mean, I got GMail just yesterday from "Margaret Atwood," wanting to tell me how much she loved my book as a prelude to trying to suck money out of my wallet. I would love for the actual Margaret Atwood to tell me she enjoyed my work. I rather doubt she needs my money. And I very much doubt that this GMail account was legit.

All of which is to say: Please get your own domain for your email. Especially if you are a writer or creator, but even more especially if you are an ongoing business concern. Bluntly, your own domain and email are table stakes for businesses. The spam problem isn’t going to get any better, folks. I’ve been online now for 35 years. It’s never once gotten better since I’ve been here.

Also, don’t use "AI" to write your emails. My spam filter will grab your email really fast if you do. Use your own brain and...