The Republican National Committee Is Suing Google For Its Email Spam Filters

The Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a complaint against Google on Friday, alleging that the search engine sent its emails to users' spam folders.

In a case filed in California's U.S. District Court, the U.S. political committee accuses the internet giant of "discriminating" against it by "throttling its email correspondence due to the RNC's political affiliation and opinions."

"Google has collectively relegated millions of RNC emails to the spam folders of prospective donors and supporters during critical election fundraising and community building times," the RNC alleged in its lawsuit.

Google refuted the claims.

"As previously indicated, we do not block communications based on their political affiliation. The spam filters in Gmail respond to user actions." Google official José Castaeda said in a statement. Referring to the FEC, he added, "We provide training and support to campaigns, and we just developed a trial program for political senders that was approved by the FEC, and we continue to work to maximize email deliverability while lowering unwanted spam."

Typically, spam filters on email systems remove and divert undesired "spam" messages to a separate folder.

The bulk of the month, nearly all of the RNC's emails end up in users' inboxes, but at the end of the month, a vital time for fund-raising, virtually all of their emails end up in spam folders.

"The RNC's fundraising has historically been most successful at the end of the month," the lawsuit argues, adding that it makes no difference if the email is about giving, voting, or community outreach.

According to the committee, "discrimination" has been occurring for roughly ten months despite its best efforts to collaborate with Google.

It added that the alleged routing of its emails to spam folders has reduced revenue and that more money will be lost in the coming weeks as a result of the upcoming midterm elections.

Republicans have long claimed that huge technology companies discriminate against conservative perspectives and stifle free speech, a notion that technology companies adamantly dispute.