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For years I’ve used and recommended Google Apps and Gmail to others, and have found them extremely reliable.

The last week I’ve run repeatedly into the same problem, and I’m sure that some other users must come across.  The problem occurred when I wanted to send an email to a group of science coordinators across the county.

I even have a list of emails set up in my contacts address book (on Google) for this purpose.  I emailed the group with an update and a link to a Google form for them to complete (only 8 users in the To: field).

The email bounced with the following message (Message rejected.  See http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=69585 for more information):

The solution in the past was to split the users between the To: and CC: fields.  I tried this again as my tried and trusted method of getting my email sent (in the absence of any useful advice from Google).  The email wasn’t sent and I received the following message instead (the error that the other server returned was: 550 550 5.4.5 Daily sending quota exceeded):

It now transpires that I am unable to send any email, at least for the rest of the day (at least) because google think I’m a spammer.  Nice one Google.

My email had a Word attachment and a link.  It was sent to a group of 8 people (all in my contact book).  It seems that this makes me a spammer.  Is it not within the realms of possibility that there are users out there who may want to send a link to a group of contacts.  Directing me to use Google Groups is not a workable solution Google – since most of the people I am trying to contact have barely mastered email.

I would advise Google to tweak their spam detecting algorithms.  If you have lots of people opening accounts to send spam, perhaps you need to look at the meagre amount of information you need to give to get a google account rather than cutting off your loyal users who merely want to email a link to a list of contacts.

Google touts its apps suite as a dependable and reliable system, and yet it has gaping holes like this, and yet it has published very little information for users telling them what to happen if this happens.  Google sort your act out if you want to see more people who have #gonegoogle.