FTC chair warns Google about Gmail’s ‘partisan’ spam filters

Andrew Ferguson, the head of Trump’s appointed to the Federal Trade Committee, recently worried that the “Alphabet of Gmail administration is designed for partisan influences.”

In a letter addressed to the CEO of Alphabet Sundar Pichai, Ferguson referred to a recent story in the New York Post, which describes the complaints of the targeted victory (a consultant company and public relations that worked with the Republican National Committee and is done by Elon Musk), which calls for email correspondence.

“I understand recent reports is that Gmail random filters routinely prevent messages from reaching consumers when these messages come from Republican messengers, but they fail to prevent similar messages sent by Democrats,” Ferguson wrote.

Alphabet has warned that if Gmail filters “prevent Americans from receiving the speech they expect, or they donate as they see it appropriate, candidates may lead to harm to American consumers and may violate the FTC’s law to unfair or deceptive commercial practices,” adding to “the investigation of FTC and potential benefit procedures.”

In response, a Google Axios spokesman told the Gmail random filters “see a variety of objective signals – such as whether people represent a specific e -mail as unwanted messages, or if a specific advertising agency sends a large volume of emails that often feature people as unwanted messages”, and said that the company applies this approach. On an equal footing with all messages, and looking for political influences. “

“We will review this message and look forward to engaging in constructively,” said the spokesman.

Conservatives often complain that they are subject to censorship or treat them in an unfair way by digital platforms, including Gmail. In 2023, the Federal Electoral Committee rejected a complaint with Republicans regarding Gmail random post films, and a federal court also rejected a lawsuit against RNC with similar complaints. (RNC appears to refresh this lawsuit.)

Earlier this month, a federal investigation judge conducted by the Federal Trade Committee in the group of left -tendencies prevented its research in anti -Semitic content on X, and described the investigation as a “revenge act”.