FTC Warns Google Over Allegedly Partisan Spam Filters
Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson on Thursday warned Google over allegations that its spam filters are blocking fundraising messages from Republicans.
“My understanding from recent reporting is that Gmail’s spam filters routinely block messages from reaching consumers when those messages come from Republican senders but fail to block similar messages sent by Democrats,” Ferguson says in a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
A Google spokesperson says its spam filters “look at a variety of objective signals — like whether people mark a particular email as spam, or if a particular ad agency is sending a high volume of emails that are often marked by people as spam.”
“This applies equally to all senders, regardless of political ideology. We will review this letter and look forward to engaging constructively,” the spokesperson says.
Google previously defeated a lawsuit by the Republican National Committee, which alleged in 2022 that Google wrongly flagged fundraising emails as spam. The political group’s complaint referred to a North Carolina State University study that found Gmail flags around 68% of Republican campaign emails as spam, compared to 8% Democratic campaign emails. (The organization said in court papers that the “mass relegation” of its emails to Gmail spam folders stopped soon after it filed suit.)
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