Google Didn't Show Bias in Filtering Campaign-Ad Pitches, FEC Says (wsj.com) 47
The Federal Election Commission has dismissed a complaint from Republicans that Google's Gmail app aided Democratic candidates by sending GOP fundraising emails to spam at a far higher rate than Democratic solicitations. From a report: The Republican National Committee and others contended that the alleged benefit amounted to unreported campaign contributions to Democrats. But in a letter to Google last week, the FEC said it "found no reason to believe" that Google made prohibited in-kind corporate contributions, and that any skewed results from its spam filter algorithms were inadvertent. "Google has credibly supported its claim that its spam filter is in place for commercial reasons and thus did not constitute a contribution" within the meaning of federal campaign laws, according to an FEC analysis reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee complained to the FEC last year, citing an academic study that showed that nearly 70% of emails from Republican candidates were sent to spam compared with fewer than 1 in 10 from Democrat candidates from 2019 to 2020. The RNC and other campaign committees argued that Google's "overwhelmingly disproportionate suppression of Republican emails" constituted an illegal corporate contribution to Democratic candidates. But the FEC disagreed, finding that Google established that it maintains its spam filter settings to aid its business in keeping out malware, phishing attacks and scams, and not for the purpose of benefiting any political candidates.
The Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee complained to the FEC last year, citing an academic study that showed that nearly 70% of emails from Republican candidates were sent to spam compared with fewer than 1 in 10 from Democrat candidates from 2019 to 2020. The RNC and other campaign committees argued that Google's "overwhelmingly disproportionate suppression of Republican emails" constituted an illegal corporate contribution to Democratic candidates. But the FEC disagreed, finding that Google established that it maintains its spam filter settings to aid its business in keeping out malware, phishing attacks and scams, and not for the purpose of benefiting any political candidates.
Use SPF, DKIM and DMARC (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know about these particular e-mails that are being referred to, but I find that a lot of entities are not properly using the message authentication mechanisms available or they are using them improperly. They will send their campaigns from a 3rd party who is not authorized to send mail for the domain.
In my professional life, I see large multi-national orgs who can't be bothered to set up these mechanisms for their own domain or, even worse, do set them up, tell everyone to hard fail their unauthenticated messages and then our users wonder why we are always spamming out messages from major xyz company.
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That is exactly what happened.
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Your posts make me laugh because all they do is make rsilvergun look like someone we should be taking more seriously and I don't think that's your goal at all. No one likes a troll and that's certainly what you are.
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This is just an obsessive compulsive. We allow the neurotic and clinically insane here on Slashdot as we're an open and welcoming site who love all God's creatures equally.
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Well that certainly isnt true. You must be new here!
Re:Use SPF, DKIM and DMARC (Score:4, Informative)
Since the fuck your feelings crowd has some hurt feelings, here is what happened. https://www.theverge.com/2022/... [theverge.com]
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Since the fuck your feelings crowd has some hurt feelings, here is what happened. https://www.theverge.com/2022/... [theverge.com]
Of course they didn't opt into Google's program.
If they stopped getting spam filtered then they wouldn't be able to complain about Big Tech censoring them!!
Re:Use SPF, DKIM and DMARC (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the fuck your feelings crowd has some hurt feelings, here is what happened. https://www.theverge.com/2022/... [theverge.com]
Of course they didn't opt into Google's program.
If they stopped getting spam filtered then they wouldn't be able to complain about Big Tech censoring them!!
It's a general issue with the GOP. Complaining is more useful/profitable than solutions.
If/when they ever "catch the car" they lose something to complain about and fund raise on. For example, they finally get Roe overturned after 40 years and now what? All they're really getting is a shit-ton of push back and losses in Red states (politicians and failed state constitutional amendments to ban abortion). They complain about the southern border, but don't really have any useful/meaningful solutions other than to complain about it and use it fund raise against Democrats -- and troll by trafficking people to Northern states. They're the party of complaints (and tax cuts for the rich and corporations), not solutions for the people. /rant
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> lot of entities are not properly using the message authentication mechanisms...send their campaigns from a 3rd party who is not authorized...
I wonder if one party makes this mistake more than another. Then they can brag "my party is smarter than your party, neener neener!"
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I view the two sides of the Party as:
- A group of lying amoral corporate whores who would happily pimp out their grandchildren if they thought they could get away with it.
- A batshit insane group of lying amoral corporate whores who would happily pimp out their grandchildren if they thought they could get away with it.
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Let's hope they don't have kids together.
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We don't have to hypothesize. I saved a bunch of the emails from the 2020 campaign that were flagged as spam.
Both campaigns were emailing me 4-5 times a week. Do either of these look wrong to you?
The GOP have internal emails (Score:5, Interesting)
So yeah, they never stood a chance. They have a massive issue with scammers operating in their party, with Donald Trump's campaign using those same tactics (or worse, think hidden checkmarks for recurring "donations").
Mind you, the party apparatus wouldn't care but the scammers are so common and successful that the main party is having trouble raising money. The scammers got their 1st and pocketed the money.
It's a bunch of crooks upset that other crooks are out-crooking them.
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Not only that, but they were using some very deep lists. I registered R ~20 years ago to vote in one primary, and quickly changed it back to Independent but I still get their scammy emails in spam.
I get a few emails from Dems that are out of place-- from somewhere I lived 3-4 years ago as one example. They go in junk as well.
Re:The GOP have internal emails (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this lawsuit is like complaining your high interest payday loan propaganda is being blocked more than mainstream banks. It is how this is supposed to work. Scams are blocked.
Another real example is Trumps fundraising for Hershel Walker. Most of the money, like over 90% was diverted into Trump campaign funds, not Walker legal but scammy.
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Possibly illegal but very very difficult to enforce or convict on. Ie, if you fundraise for one purpose and then use the money for something else, that's fraud. If thise was a gofundme claiming I had cancer but then spent it on the kid's college tuition, it would clearly be illegal. Campaigns get away with this because politicians set the laws that they live under...
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I continue to get Trumpist "conservative intel" emails I never signed up for and they keep coming even after I unsubscribed. They continue to go to spam which is where they belong.
I'll take ANY political ad filtering, legal or not (Score:2)
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What? You mean Hillary is not actually running a lizard people trans-species grooming ring via Hunter's laptop in a pizza parlor basement?
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"League of Super Patriots, assemble!"
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All political ads are in my spam folder. I haven't seen any exceptions. But I'm not subscribed to any party's emails so no reason for them to not be spam. When I do clear out the spam folder also, 99.99% of them are for fund raising. I think I've only ever noticed one that was actually about "please vote for me".
poor filtering (Score:5, Insightful)
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You should check the spam folder occasionally in case your kids were asking for help...
Not google's fault. (Score:3)
If republican mass mails look scammy - and that seems to be the problem - perhaps republicans should try writing in "non-scammy" language?
Re:Not google's fault. (Score:5, Insightful)
Republicans no longer know how to write in non-scammy ways. Most of the political movers in either of the big parties don't know how any more. Even listening to most of them speak makes you wonder if they ever had any connection to humanity or being decent humans at all.
The difference between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to campaign emails? Democrats tend to hire competent copy creators to write their messages for them. Republicans are too gung-ho and ready to spew hate to bother with hiring outside help for such a job.
What's really sad is most of the Republican base probably wants those scammy messages. Most of the Democratic base is too busy rolling their eyes over both parties to want any messages from any of them. I tend to lean Democrat when it comes time to vote, yet think the entire political process in the states is a massive fraud that's currently being used to control the plebes while they strip the bottom rungs of society to feed the top. Lucky us. We get to choose between the hucksters.
Hmmmm.... (Score:2, Funny)
I remember when Twitter investigated itself and found it wasn't biased.
Then someone bought it and exposed all sorts of issues.
not saying they didnt do it deliberately (Score:1)
They arent saying they didnt do it deliberately (70% vs 10% isnt an accident...can i get 100/100 plz???), they are saying because its for corporate clients its not a campaign issue. I wonder how the count of corporate users vs personal users compares?
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i retract my statement. after R'ingTFA. Google offered a method to bypass said filters, and R's didnt sign up. so its not apples/apples
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Of course. Republicans will whine about everything which doesn't go their way, only to find they're the ones who created the problem in the first place.
When it comes to Republicans, it's always someone else's fault.
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For the Republicans, the utility in this whole situation is in trumpeting victimhood and instilling in their base the fear of "oppressors". Fixing it helps them not at all.
So their SPAM is being sent to the SPAM folder (Score:4, Funny)
Same old (Score:1)
"Google has credibly supported its claim that its spam filter is in place for commercial reasons and thus did not constitute a contribution" within the meaning of federal campaign laws
In the eternal work of politicians to use the power of government to hurt political opposition, this was a wonderful invention!
The First Amendment protects speech. But here, they try to tie a dollar amount to it as a benefit, then claim they didn't report it as a donation.
In practice, they are not detached concerned with what is, ultimately, a right to know issue, but motivated by a desire to kick opposition in the nuts.
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In the eternal work of politicians to use the power of government to hurt political opposition, this was a wonderful invention!
I take it that you didn't read the article (in the Rupert Murdoch-owned WSJ) down to the point where it mentions that it was a "bipartisan decision to dismiss this complaint".
Fuck em if they're that stupid (Score:1)
If there was a program available to sign up to by pass the gmail spam filters and they didn't bother to sign up much less try to follow whatever the security standards are (dkim, etc), then fuck em. Maybe they'll learn a lesson for next time and hire some qualified technical people or listen to the ones they have.
Marketing at this one place I was at was allllll about spamming. After they got our corporate domain blocked with their shit I forced them to go outside to some third party spam house while I was
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I don't know that I can agree with this.
Group A sends emails that are delivered and by-and-large are marked as not spam.
Group B sends emails that are by-and-large marked as spam and not delivered.
Group A & B both send emails at similar rates, to similar audiences, with similar provisions for handling unsubscribe requests, and both implement SPF/DKIM/DMARC.
Are you asserting that Group B should enroll in a special program with additional legal and technical requirements so they can get similar treatment a
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Group A subscribed, B did not.
And if you dig deeper into this story their emails were extremely spammy looking.
I personally believe none of these emails should get through from any politician types but if we're going to say that these are important somehow and not junk then fine play by the rules, sign up, do it the right way and don't complain if you can't follow a simple procedure.
I'm always up for a good conspiracy theory and google has a history of anti-conservative filtering but this isn't looking like
I tested this during the 2020 election cycle (Score:4, Interesting)
DNC emails absolutely destroyed the RNC mails, in quantity received-roughly 5 to 1. They also seemed more difficult to filter and more resistant to opting out: I'm still receiving them at that address. I realize this is anecdotal, but I really did expect the opposite to occur.
Perhaps (Score:1)
Error in Headline. (Score:3)
There is an error in the headline. It says
What it should say is
AFAIK, the finding of bias in filtering was well demonstrated, not contested, and Google separately agreed to fix it. For this case the assertion was that Google's filtering could not be a contribution to specific candidates or a party because it was unintentional.
If their email is like their postal mail... (Score:2)
If their fundraising emails are anything like their fundraising postal mail then I'm not surprised it disproportionately gets flagged as junk.
Living in a multi-generational household with registered Republicans, Democrats and Independents, we get the full range here. The Democrats send envelopes that say on the outside things like "Help Jared Polis Get Reelected" or "Raphael Warnock needs your money" and have the address in the top left identifying it as coming from the DNC or some other obvious affiliate.
Quit fighting, let economics sort it out. (Score:1)
I think there is a real simple solution to this. Let democrats run parts of the country they're in power in, the way they want, and let republicans run parts of the country they're in power, the way they want. (I mean in the way they basically already do this, but stop using the other side to fund your agendas for both parties)
Neither side subsidizes the other in economics, labor, man power, resources etc. Democrats want a ditch dug up for the environment or support people viewed as just don't want to work
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The last time someone tried to divide up the country like that it didn't work so well. Repeating the experiment seems unwise.
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Worked out great in the end, for awhile. Human nature seems to need the lessons repeated.