Gmail One-Click Unsubscribe Link and Pinpoint Templates

Question

I am asking this question because I am currently in a state of total disbelief. It appears that a significant error in judgment has been made by someone on the AWS Pinpoint team.

Currently, there is no way to add the necessary headers for compliance with Gmail’s One-Click Unsubscribe requirement to emails sent through AWS Pinpoint using Email Templates, effective from February 1st.

To clarify, it is possible to set this header when using RawMessage objects, but this method is an entirely different implementation and is not a viable option for our business.

I am not exactly sure how to phrase my question, but I suppose it can be summarized as follows: Is this really happening? Will Pinpoint (templates) become completely obsolete after February 1st? Surely, AWS hasn't overlooked this... have they?

I have opened a support ticket with AWS, and their response was, 'There is an open feature request for this, but we cannot promise any delivery dates.' I have also reached out to my AWS account manager and technical leads.

This situation seems so unbelievable to me; I cannot fathom how AWS could allow one of their major features to become obsolete.

Answer

The current guidelines show that that One click unsubscribe is required only in June.
If the email message includes any kind of unsubscribe link that is sufficient for the February deadline

[+] https://support.google.com/a/answer/14229414
[+] https://senders.yahooinc.com/faqs/
[+] https://blog.postmaster.yahooinc.com/post/737268108173230080/an-update-on-enforcing-email-standards

AWS Pinpoint team is aware of the requirements and working  on making the transition smooth.

Answer

As stated in previous post. Google is implementing this change in a gradual approach. As such, it will not be a full stop - reject all come Feb 2024.
The first observances of increased failure rates will be seen in Feb 2024 where a small percentage will get the rejection notice. The next increase tier will occur in Apr 2024 where a higher percentage of non compliant email will see rejections. Complete rejection will not occur until Jun 2024.

However, there is a correction with the above. Unsubscribes links within the body itself will not be compliant.  As according to RFC 8058, the requirement is that the header field of the email contains certain attributes. Since links in the body do not satisfy this requirement, for the February deadline it is a possibility that there will be percentage of emails that will be rejected. This is also mentioned in the Google FAQ.

Besides that, please do know that we are aware and are not sitting on the side waiting for the service to be inoperable. The AWS Pinpoint team is working on making the transition smooth and without interruption.

[+] https://support.google.com/a/answer/14229414  
[+] Document history for Amazon Pinpoint - https://docs.aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/latest/userguide/doc-history.html

Gmail One-Click Unsubscribe Link and Pinpoint Templates

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