While it is possible to forward email emails from your Zimbra account to another external account, ITS strongly recommends against this practice unless there is a special need. If there is a special need to forward your email, then it is important to be aware of additional responsibilities that exist by making this change.
SPF: Sender Policy Framework is a way to fight spam by blocking email forgery (trying sending emails “from” someone that isn’t you). The downside is that it makes forwarding emails to another email address very risky. If you ever receive emails from off campus (not @earlham.edu) and those are forwarded to another email server it will mostly likely fail the SPF check as the email isn’t originally from @earlham.edu.
Privacy: When forwarding to a Google account or another personal message provider, your data may be scanned for commercial purposes. By forwarding e-mail to an outside account, you are making a privacy decision for the sender. This is particularly problematic if student data is forwarded.
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