Google will no longer let political campaigns dodge their spam detection. According to The Washington Post, Google is ending the email filter bypass pilot program by the end of January.
The dismissal motion filed at a federal court in the Eastern District of California, Google rejects the Republican National Committee (RNC) allegations of political bias, which led to the test.
Gmail's filtering methods all apply equally to every sender whether or not there's a political connection.
The Pilot Program
The pilot was due to RNC accusations in October 2022, in which they said that Google was censoring right-wing fundraising emails by marking them as spam. They also pointed to a study that backed the claims. However, Google maintained that messaging frequency, user responses, and other non-political elements dictated filtering behavior.
The tech giant also acknowledged the pressure and got permission from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to run the test. Over a hundred Democrat and Republican committees joined the program following its approval in August 2022.
However, the RNC wasn't one of those who joined the program, and Google pointed this out in their new filing that asserted the Republicans want to accuse them of unfair treatment instead of participating in the solution.
A Google spokesperson says the recent FEC decision confirmed that it doesn't filter email for political purposes. In addition, it said that the RNC complaint is "without merit."
There are also a number of advocacy groups and critics that urged the FED to reject the looser approach to political emails. This is due to their concern that this would allow political candidates from any party spam users with only a few repercussions.
Earlier this month, the FEC dismissed a similar Republican-led complaint over Google's spam filters.
With the latest filing, the debate is moot. Hence, politicians will need to have a more careful approach to ensure their campaign messages go directly to the inbox of people.
Also Read: New Gmail Security Threat Arises! Outlook and Other Popular Email Services Targeted as Well
What Happened?
Throughout the 2022 electrician cycle, Republicans were mad over tech censorship that was fueled by an academic study that found Gmail flagged FOP fundraising emails as spam more often than the ones from Democratic senders.
Now, Google is planning to dismiss the RNC's October lawsuit, according to Axios.
In the motion, Google states, "The RNC is wrong. Gmail's spam filtering policies apply equally to emails from all senders whether they are politically affiliated or not."
The filing served as the end of the short-lived program, and the company stated that their spam filtering is a main feature and one of the reasons the email platform is popular.
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