An unknown battle between Google and pressure groups over Gmail's spam filter that marks donation emails from right-wing candidates as spam
The email service 'Gmail' developed by Google automatically judges spam and suspicious emails, labels them as 'spam', and sorts them into a separate folder from the normal inbox folder. increase. However, lawmakers are violently protesting to Google that the fundraising e-mail sent by the US Republican Party to this filter has been discarded and the intended person has not received the e-mail.
The GOP went to war against Google over spam — and may win - The Washington Post
In recent years, the amount of political fundraising activities conducted by e-mail and text has increased explosively, and Americans receive campaign messages on a daily basis. In the most recent election, a Republican fundraiser led by former President Donald Trump strategist Gary Covey ramped up email solicitations for small donations. Trump's Political Action Committee sometimes sends 10 or more emails a day, many of which are written in fine print about the possibility that donations won't be used as advertised. It has also been pointed out that there is a lack of transparency, such as
Political parties' attempts to send campaign emails to voters to raise funds have been ongoing for years, but according to documents submitted by WinRed, the Republican Party's leading donation processing portal, the party's online fundraising efforts have been ongoing. has been declining in recent months, with Q2 2022 down about 11% compared to Q1 2022.
According to a survey (PDF file) conducted by North Carolina State University, 77% of right-wing candidate emails were sent to spam in Gmail, compared to 10% of left-wing candidate emails. Outlook and Yahoo, by contrast, were more likely to mark emails from left-wing candidates as spam.
However, Google disputed the study, saying it had a small sample size, used old data, and did not take into account which candidates used the tool and how they used it in mass emailing. I'm here. “We do not filter email based on political affiliation,” Google said in a statement. It can block over 99.9% of malware.'
It is unclear whether Google's spam filter has affected the party's funding, but the Republican Party has put pressure on Google, including information dissemination on Twitter and private discussions with Google CEO Sundar Pichai. We are running a campaign.
``Voters who have signed up to receive campaign emails should receive 100% unless they unsubscribe or mark the email as spam,'' Covey said. That's not the case with Gmail, where suspicious emails are automatically marked as spam even if you don't mark them as spam.
As a result, Republican Rep. Debbie Lesko and others submitted the `` Political Bias in Algorithm Sorting (BIAS) Emails Act '' on June 16, 2022. Big Tech's use of algorithms to filter emails is a form of censorship, and email services filter emails from political campaigns or campaign committees unless users themselves mark the emails as spam. trying to ban it. As if in response, Google asked the Federal Election Commission to approve a pilot program to exclude campaign emails from spam detection.
The response was 'embarrassing,' said Brett Schenker, an email distribution expert who consulted on Democratic campaigns. 'Instead of defending a highly effective spam filter and standing up to the Republican Party, Google acquiesces,' Schenker said. However, a person familiar with Google's efforts said, ``This pilot program is not entirely in response to Republican complaints, but is based on a long-standing effort to test options for mass senders, even the Federal Election Commission. Even if the program is approved, it will not continue for more than six months if the program does not work well.'
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