Home Forums Networks & Cross-Platform Networking Private window does not hide identity?

The number of recipients in an email is still considered one of the most reliable indicators of spamming and that isn't just Google, it is industry wide. It was institutionalized as a virtual standard when various state and federal agencies began putting severe pressure on major email providers to prevent their networks from being used to distribute spam. Some providers set the maximum number of recipients as low as 10 or 15. That goes back 20 to 25 years in the earliest days of spamming. That was the progenitor of email services such as Constant Contact.

A lot of time and money has gone into software and techniques for identifying potential spam originating in or going to ISP networks, but there are $billions to be made with spam so some of the most highly paid programmers in the world spend their days figuring out how to get around every block that is set up. In the past it was estimated that over 60% of email traffic was spam. The fact our mailboxes are not overflowing with spam is a testament to how effective Google and others have been in blocking spam.

There is no question spam blocking techniques are annoying to "people who send a newsletter to 100 softball members" but to me it beats getting a couple of hundred spam messages every day. By the way, many "viagra spammers" send their junk through bot infected PCs using barebones SMTP servers installed on the infected PC to get around any limit on number of recipients by bypassing the provider's SMTP servers entirely. Others use SMTP servers in China, Russia, etc. that aren't worried about U.S. or E.U. regulations.
FYI, I logged into my Google account today using TOR at the Medium security setting and both times had to verify I was by entering a code number texted to the cell phone associated with my account. So even at the Medium security setting Google apparently did not recognize my browser as one that had logged on to the same account half an hour earlier.