According to a lawsuit filed last week in a California federal court, the Republican National Committee is going after Google for labeling its fundraising emails and Get-Out-the-Vote emails as spam —keeping them out of sight of GOP voters; the RNC noticed the suppression at the end of each month when “historically when the RNC’s fundraising is most successful.”
“Enough is enough,” tweeted RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
“Enough is enough – we are suing Google for their blatant bias against Republicans. For ten months in a row, Google has sent crucial end-of-month Republican GOTV and fundraising emails to spam with zero explanation. We are committed to putting an end to this clear pattern of bias.”
“It doesn’t matter whether the email is about donating, voting, or community outreach,” the suit maintained, noting that emails with supporters are a “crucial conduit” for the party.
The official GOP website provides a bit of background on the incident.
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Every single month – for 10 months in a row – Google has systematically attacked the RNC’s email during key periods at the end of the month. This not only affects fundraising but get-out-the-vote efforts as well.
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Since the start of Early Voting, Google suppressed over 41.5 million RNC emails, over 1 million of them were GOTV emails.
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We have raised this issue with Google for months and worked in good faith with no resolution. On top of it all, our emails have been suppressed despite concrete changes that have improved overall performance.
The RNC also provided a chart showing steep dips in deliverability towards the end of the month. “Google’s conduct has caused the RNC to lose its ability to communicate voting information and other political messaging to its supporters during the critical midterm elections,” the party charged, as well as potentially millions of dollars of donations. “This harm is irreparable and must be stopped.”
Google is, of course, denying the claim.
“As we have repeatedly said, we simply don’t filter emails based on political affiliation,” said Google spokesperson José Castañeda. “Gmail’s spam filters reflect users’ actions.”
A recent study done by researchers at North Carolina State University found more troubling evidence that may support the RNC’s claims.
According to The New York Post, “Researchers at North Carolina State University who studied email patterns ahead of the 2020 presidential election found that Google’s Gmail algorithm labeled GOP fundraising emails as spam at a rate 820% higher than Democratic Party messages, sparking a formal Republican complaint to the Federal Election Commission.”
Stay tuned —this will get messy.
