What are the potential issues with DuckDuckGo entering the email receiving and forwarding business?

Email marketer from Reddit user u/privacy_enthusiast shares concerns that DuckDuckGo's email forwarding could become a honeypot, attracting unwanted attention from malicious actors due to its focus on privacy.

Email marketer from Quora user shares that DuckDuckGo is a relatively new player in the email forwarding space and its reliability and scalability are yet to be fully proven, which could lead to potential service disruptions or delays.

Email marketer from a Medium article responds that using DDG's email service requires trusting DuckDuckGo not to misuse the data they collect, even with privacy assurances. Users must rely on DDG's ethics and security practices.

Email marketer from Troy Hunt's Blog explains that using DuckDuckGo's email service centralizes metadata with a single provider. While they promise privacy, users must trust DuckDuckGo to handle their data responsibly, creating a single point of failure or potential compromise.

Email marketer from Email Vendor Guide points out that DDG faces deliverability problems, because forwarding services sometimes struggle to maintain high deliverability rates, because the reputation of their IPs is crucial to getting emails to the inbox.

Email marketer from Hacker News user example_user points out that DDG's email service, by nature of inspecting and modifying emails, inherently breaks end-to-end encryption, which could be a concern for some users.

Marketer from Email Geeks shares a link about DuckDuckGo getting into the email receiving, modifying, and forwarding business and feels it could cause headaches for legitimate senders and receivers.

Email marketer from EmailToolTester shares that if DuckDuckGo's email forwarding service becomes widely used by spammers to mask their origins, it could lead to email providers aggressively blocking emails originating from or passing through DuckDuckGo's servers.

Email marketer from SendGrid explains that sender reputation is important, because forwarded messages are more likely to be marked as spam if the forwarding service has a low sender reputation.

Email marketer from StackExchange user points out that DuckDuckGo email might face compliance issues (like GDPR, CCPA) because, as an intermediary, it needs to handle personal data and user requests, which might conflict with its privacy claims.

Expert from Spam Resource explains that DuckDuckGo's email forwarding might face challenges related to email authentication, as forwarding often breaks SPF and DKIM records, potentially leading to deliverability issues. They would need to carefully manage authentication to ensure messages are delivered successfully.

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that one key risk for DuckDuckGo is maintaining a positive sender reputation. As an email forwarder, if spammers abuse their service, their IPs could get blocklisted, negatively affecting legitimate users. DDG must implement robust abuse prevention measures.

Expert from Email Geeks states forwarders are dysfunctional in a modern environment.

Expert from Email Geeks recounts a conversation with DuckDuckGo about stopping IPs from getting blocked and ensuring mail goes to the inbox, implying DuckDuckGo may not fully grasp deliverability challenges.

Expert from Spam Resource states that DuckDuckGo's handling of user data and privacy promises introduces responsibilities to comply with regulations like GDPR and CCPA. Their data handling practices must be transparent and secure to avoid potential legal and reputational risks.

Documentation from OpenSPF.org answers how Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is used to prevent email spoofing, but email forwarding can cause SPF checks to fail because the forwarder is not authorized to send on behalf of the original sender's domain, potentially leading to deliverability issues.

Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools explains that forwarders should maintain consistent IP addresses and domain reputations, and should ensure correct configuration of SPF, DKIM and DMARC records to improve deliverability rates.

Documentation from DKIM.org explains how DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) signatures can be invalidated by email forwarding services if the message content or headers are altered, potentially causing deliverability problems.

Documentation from DMARC.org explains that DMARC policies might cause issues with DDG, where emails with strict DMARC policies could be rejected if DDG modifies the email during forwarding, violating the domain's specified authentication rules.

Documentation from RFC 5322 explains that modifying email headers during forwarding can lead to authentication issues like SPF failures, as the original sender's domain may no longer align with the forwarding server's IP address. This can impact deliverability.