Google is at it again — and GOP campaign donations could be a casualty.
The search giant has been caught this summer flagging Republican fundraising emails as “dangerous” spam — keeping them from hitting gmail users’ inboxes — while leaving similar solicitations from Democrats untouched, a consulting firm warned.
That’s despite repeatedly sparking headlines and lawsuits in recent years over the allegedly partisan practice. Last year, a federal judge tossed a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee that complained of biased email filtering.
In 2023, the Federal Election Commission dismissed an RNC complaint alleging discrimination in Gmail’s spam filters.
Nonetheless, Targeted Victory – whose clients include the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Rep. Steve Scalise and Sen. Marsha Blackburn – said it observed that the “serious and troubling” trend was still going on as recently as June and July of this year.
Gmail has been flagging emails containing links to the fundraising platform WinRed and “in many cases, sending them directly to spam,” according to a copy of the memo to clients exclusively obtained by The Post.
Meanwhile, Targeted Victory conducted tests in which emails containing links to the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue were delivered without issue. The memo included video demonstrations of the firm’s tests.
“If Gmail is allowed to quietly suppress WinRed links while giving ActBlue a free pass, it will continue to tilt the playing field in ways that voters never see, but campaigns will feel every single day,” the memo said.
The memo could fuel new allegations of political bias against Google – which was accused by Elon Musk in March of interfering “to help Democrats thousands of times every election season.”
Critics including President Trump have accused Google of manipulating search results to hurt Republicans and even of suppressing information of the assassination attempt against Trump last year. The company has strenuously denied wrongdoing.
When reached for comment on Wednesday, Google spokesperson José Castañeda said the company’s “email filter protections are in place to keep our users safe.”
“They look at a variety of signals – like whether a user has previously marked an email as spam – and apply equally to all senders, regardless of political ideology,” Castañeda said in a statement.
A 2022 study by researchers at North Carolina State University found that Gmail flagged 59% more Republican fundraising emails as spam than Democratic ones during the leadup to the 2020 presidential election.
“We observed that the [spam filtering algorithms] of different email services indeed exhibit biases towards different political affiliations,” the researchers said at the time.
Targeted Victory said it first informed Google about the issue on June 30 after receiving complaints from its clients. The company initially “deflected” by “blaming local settings” for the email issues, according to the memo.
The consulting firm’s tests involved sending identical emails through Gmail, with the only difference being that one contained a WinRed donation link and the other contained an ActBlue link.
“The only difference between the two emails was the link,” the memo said. “ActBlue delivered. WinRed got flagged. That is not a coincidence.”
“This held true even for major accounts, including Trump and Elise Stefanik links, compared to DNC links.”
After weeks of back and forth with Google, the company’s support team acknowledged that links to WinRed were deemed “suspicious” and flagged with a “red warning banner” alerting users that it was “potentially suspicious or unsafe,” according to a screenshot of a July 22 email.
“This should alarm every campaign and committee that relies on email to connect with voters,” the memo said.
Credit: Source link
