Friday’s lawsuit by the Republican National Committee asked a California court for an order requiring Google to stop sending spam emails containing hordes Republican politicians to Gmail users’ junk folders.
In its lawsuit against Google, the RNC filed seven charges against Google in the United States District Court of the Eastern District of California. These included violation of California’s common carrier laws, unfair competition and discrimination, as well as negligence. The committee seeks a ruling that Google’s political spam practices are illegal. It also wants an order banning Google spamming RNC supporters’ emails and compensatory damages.
The lawsuit claims that Google sent “millions of RNC email addresses en masse” to supporters’ and donors’ spam folders at pivotal points in election fundraising.
RNC informed MRC Free Speech America, Oct. 3, that Gmail had suppressed more than 22 million get-out the vote and fundraising emails in the last three days. This continued a trend where the inbox delivery rate of Republican campaign emails to Gmail users has dropped to almost zero at the end the month for 10 consecutive months, according the RNC.
In August, the Federal Election Commission (FEC), issued an advisory opinion that stated that a pilot program Google proposed to ensure that more political campaign emails from both sides reached users’ inboxes was not in violation of election law. The program suggested that political campaign emails flow directly to Gmail users’ mailboxes unless users opt to have them sent to spam.
After a March North Carolina State University study revealed that Gmail marked 67.6 % of right-leaning candidate’s emails as spam, and only 8.2 % of left-leaning candidate’s emails as spam, the pilot was approved.
Google was rejected by Republicans for its proposal. Republican Senators. John Thune (SD), Steve Daines (MT), and John Thune(SD) joined the National Republican Congressional Committee to express doubts that Google will correct its left-leaning spam filter bias. This was even after the FEC approved Google’s pilot proposal.
FEC advisory opinions are very specific and require that parties implement 100 percent of the facts outlined in those opinions, Kendra Arnold, Executive Director at Foundation for Accountability and Civil Trust, told MRC Freedom speech America.
Arnold stated that [FEC] advisory opinions state that “if you stick to those facts, it is not a violation.” They can still find a violation if you do anything different from what they have stated.
Arnold said that the FEC advisory opinions have strict requirements. If there is any doubt about whether the covered entity violated the guidelines, an interested party may bring further litigation to the FEC.
The question of whether Google is violating electoral law boils down to whether Google’s email service “filters out” certain candidates. Hans von Spakovsky, manager at The Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative told MRC Free Speech America.
“If their filtering system or their algorithm system is allowing certain campaigns through, then they’re not following the parameters of [FEC] advisory opinions and they’re violating the FEC’s stated guidelines,” stated von Spakovsky, who was a member of the FEC from 2006 to 2007.
Google denies any attempts to filter emails based upon political affiliation in a statement sent Monday to MRC Free Speech America.
Jose Castaneda, a Google spokesperson, stated that emails are not filtered based on political affiliation. He made the statement to MRC Free Speech America. “Gmail’s spam filters reflect the actions of users. We offer training and guidelines for campaigns, recently launched an FEC-approved pilot program for political senders, as well as ongoing work to maximize email deliveryability and minimize unwanted spam.
The RNC lawsuit claimed that the evidence against Google is still “egregious” even though the FEC approved the company’s pilot program to supposedly address the bias against Republicans in email communications.
The lawsuit claims that Google sends almost all of the RNC’s spam emails at the same time at each month’s end. “Historically, the RNC’s most successful fundraising period is the end of each month. This is both suspiciously and a fact. It doesn’t matter if the email is about donating or voting or community outreach.
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