Anyone forwarding an Ohio State or BuckeyeMail account to another email can expect forwarded messages to possibly be blocked by new security measures designed to block spam. This means:
- Anyone who is forwarding an Ohio State email address to an external email service like Gmail, Yahoo! or Outlook.com, may not receive some or all incoming messages because messages will be blocked by the new security.
- Anyone who sends a message to a recipient who is forwarding their Ohio State email address to an external email service like Gmail, Yahoo! or Outlook.com, cannot be assured that the recipient will receive the message.
The changes will roll out during February. Because Gmail is an industry leader, whenever Gmail puts new security measures in place their competitors most often add similar security. While Ohio State’s policies around email remains unchanged, because these changes are being made by outside businesses there is no action that Ohio State can take to prevent delivery interruptions.
When
Because Google has a huge user base, the changes will likely be rolled out in waves and will not impact every account holder at the same time. When Google rolled out new security features last year, not all users were impacted in the same way, so it is possible some users will experience the changes differently than others.
Recommendations
- Students: Discontinue forwarding to outside email services and log in to BuckeyeMail to retrieve messages sent to you Ohio State email. If your course instructors use Carmen, check Announcements and Carmen Messaging to ensure you do not miss messages from your instructors. While Ohio State’s policies around email remains unchanged, we recommend that students transition all accounts and contacts not related to the university to a personal email address instead of an Ohio State address.
- Instructors: Use Carmen Announcements and Carmen Messaging to ensure your communications reach students in your courses.
- Alumni: Alumni Relations is sending a separate communication to Lifetime Email Forwarding (LEFs) alumni, recommending that they discontinue sending to outside email services.
Communication and Follow Up
While we have communicated this information in a variety of ways, many users will likely have missed those communications, and will likely be surprised when the changes impact them. While they may reach out to the IT Service Desk, we are not recommending that because these changes are being made by outside businesses and there is no action that Ohio State can take to prevent delivery interruptions.