Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Andrew Ferguson, accused Google of the use of “partisan” spam filtering in Gmail that sends Republican fundraising e -mails to the spam -folder while delivers Democratic e -mails to Inbox.
Ferguson sent a letter yesterday to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and accused the company of “Potential FTC ACT -violations with regard to the part -time administration of Gmail.” The letter from Ferguson relives long -term Republican complaints that were previously rejected by a federal judge and the Federal Election Commission.
“My understanding of recent reporting is that the spam filters of Gmail block messages to reach consumers when those messages come from Republican senders, but do not block similar messages by Democrats,” Ferguson wrote. The FTC chairman mentioned a recent report from the New York Post about the alleged practice.
The letter told Pichai that if “Gmail's filters prevent the Americans from receiving speech that they expect, or donate as they consider it, the filters can harm US consumers and the prohibition of the FTC act can violate unfair or deceptive commercial practices.” Ferguson added that any “action or practice that is not in accordance with” Google's obligations under the FTC law “can lead to an FTC research and potential enforcement measures.”
“While I am except for my authority, I believe that such behavior can also violate the applicable laws for the protection of state protection,” said Ferguson's letter in a footnote.
Google beat RNC in court
Google has provided Ars today. “The spam filters of Gmail look at various objective user signals -as a user marks an e -mail as a spam or or a certain advertising agency, sends a large number of e -mails on behalf of their customers that are often marked by users as spam. This applies to all senders, regardless of the political ideology.” Google said.
