GOP sues Google
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GOP sues Google for labeling its emails as spam, claims ‘blatant bias’
The lawsuit, filed Friday in a California federal court, claims that the party’s email analytics programs have documented a 10-month pattern of email suppression toward the end of each month, “historically when the RNC’s fundraising is most successful,” the suit complains.
“Enough is enough,” tweeted RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. “The RNC has sued Google for their blatant bias against us.”
Since December, GOP emails to Gmail users who had opted into receiving them reached their in-boxes at a rate of 90% or better on most days of each month, the RNC alleged.
But repeatedly, for two or more days toward the end of each month, nearly 100% of the party’s emails were marked as spam, automatically routing them to an email folder that few users check.
“It doesn’t matter whether the email is about donating, voting, or community outreach,” the suit maintained, noting that electronic communication with supporters is a “crucial conduit” for the party.
“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 rejected the party’s claims.
“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.”
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 e-mails as spam at a rate 820% higher than Democratic Party messages, sparking a formal Republican complaint to the Federal Election Commission.
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I would have expected Republican donors to all be on AOL…
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That could be it. The demographics of the three platforms differ in important ways. Given that spam filters are trained by user behavior you’d expect variation between platforms to some extent.
@jon-nyc said in GOP sues Google:
That could be it. The demographics of the three platforms differ in important ways. Given that spam filters are trained by user behavior you’d expect variation between platforms to some extent.
The problem with that would be the timing. The fact that most of these emails are fine the week before and the week after but are considered SPAM the couple of days when most people make their donations seems highly suspect to me.
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To really sort this out you’d need to control for how aggressively they compile their email lists.
I occasionally find myself on GOP mailing lists from a donation I made to McCain in 1999 during the primary (I gave to both him and Bill Bradley, upset and how quickly the parties had coalesced around Bush and Gore). Someone that aggressive in building a list is going to get a lot of uninterested recipients hitting the ‘mark as spam’ button.
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To really sort this out you’d need to control for how aggressively they compile their email lists.
I occasionally find myself on GOP mailing lists from a donation I made to McCain in 1999 during the primary (I gave to both him and Bill Bradley, upset and how quickly the parties had coalesced around Bush and Gore). Someone that aggressive in building a list is going to get a lot of uninterested recipients hitting the ‘mark as spam’ button.
@jon-nyc said in GOP sues Google:
To really sort this out you’d need to control for how aggressively they compile their email lists.
I occasionally find myself on GOP mailing lists from a donation I made to McCain in 1999 during the primary (I gave to both him and Bill Bradley, upset and how quickly the parties had coalesced around Bush and Gore). Someone that aggressive in building a list is going to get a lot of uninterested recipients hitting the ‘mark as spam’ button.
Then those emails would always be marked as spam, not just 4-5 days a month. That inconsistency is what the case is about.
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@jon-nyc said in GOP sues Google:
To really sort this out you’d need to control for how aggressively they compile their email lists.
I occasionally find myself on GOP mailing lists from a donation I made to McCain in 1999 during the primary (I gave to both him and Bill Bradley, upset and how quickly the parties had coalesced around Bush and Gore). Someone that aggressive in building a list is going to get a lot of uninterested recipients hitting the ‘mark as spam’ button.
Then those emails would always be marked as spam, not just 4-5 days a month. That inconsistency is what the case is about.
@LuFins-Dad said in GOP sues Google:
@jon-nyc said in GOP sues Google:
To really sort this out you’d need to control for how aggressively they compile their email lists.
I occasionally find myself on GOP mailing lists from a donation I made to McCain in 1999 during the primary (I gave to both him and Bill Bradley, upset and how quickly the parties had coalesced around Bush and Gore). Someone that aggressive in building a list is going to get a lot of uninterested recipients hitting the ‘mark as spam’ button.
Then those emails would always be marked as spam, not just 4-5 days a month. That inconsistency is what the case is about.
That could be a function of language that triggers spam filters, the nature of the coding, etc. Inconsistency is not necessarily bias. Not by a long shot.
Could very well be bias, but there is no way to determine that from the standpoint of user experience only.
