RNC Sues Google, Alleges Campaign Email Filtering

A Google spokesperson responded that they merely “continue to work to maximize email deliverability while minimizing unwanted spam.”

The US Republican National Committee is trying to sue tech giant Google in a US court, Axios has reported.

The lawsuit, filed in the US district court in California, alleges that Google’s actions resulted in millions of RNC campaign emails ending up in the spam folders of Gmail service users.

The RNC further argued that the timing of Google’s “filtering” is “particularly damning”.

"For most of each month, nearly all of the RNC’s emails make it into users’ inboxes,” the lawsuit claims. “At approximately the same time at the end of each month, Google sends to spam nearly all of the RNC’s emails. Critically, and suspiciously, this end of the month period is historically when the RNC’s fundraising is most successful."

This development comes as Google launched a program last month aimed at keeping campaign emails out of spam, the media outlet noted, pointing out that the RNC criticized the program that allegedly “doesn't help enough with political email filtering”.

Meanwhile, Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda insisted that the company does not filter emails “based on political affiliation”.

"Gmail’s spam filters reflect users’ actions,” he stated. “We provide training and guidelines to campaigns, we recently launched an FEC-approved pilot for political senders, and we continue to work to maximize email deliverability while minimizing unwanted spam.”