Republicans sue Google over Gmail election spam plan
Google is still sending political campaign emails to spam, says the RNC
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The Republican National Committee (RNC) has criticized efforts fromGooglethat the tech giant says aims to help stop political emails being sent to spam folders.
According toAxios, the group says Google’s plans don’t do enough to prevent automatic filtering, and are now set to take the tech giant to court in California.
According to the allegation, Google “has relegated millions of RNC emails en masse to potential donors’ and supporters’ spam folders during pivotal points in election fundraising and community building.”
Gmail political email filtering
The RNS claims to have observed normal delivery of its emails throughout most parts of the month, with many of its emails being sent to spam toward the end of the month. They say that “this end of the month period is historically when the RNC’s fundraising is most successful.”
Following criticism that more Republican content than Democratic content was getting filtered as spam, Googlelaunched a pilot program in September 2022that would see users having to mark political campaign emails as spam in the first instance, in the hope that more political campaign emails would be delivered straight to users’ mailboxes. The feature would then offer up a more prominent ‘unsubscribe’ button for users to opt out.
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A Google spokesperson toldAxiosthat “Gmail’s spam filters reflect users’ actions”, however following more than nine months’ discussions, the RNC says that the issue is still unresolved.
However, the publication noted that the RNC has not enrolled in Gmail’s spam filtering pilot program which is designed to alleviate these kinds of errors.
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The ability for political campaigners’ emails to bypass theemail service’s spam filtering was granted by the Federal Election Commission in August. When the feature rolled out, eligible committees were then able to register their participation subject to terms and requirements set out by Google.
ViaAxios
With several years’ experience freelancing in tech and automotive circles, Craig’s specific interests lie in technology that is designed to better our lives, including AI and ML, productivity aids, and smart fitness. He is also passionate about cars and the decarbonisation of personal transportation. As an avid bargain-hunter, you can be sure that any deal Craig finds is top value!
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