Google plans to stop flagging political campaign emails as spam

We all know what happens when there are political campaigns. You constantly receive messages and emails trying to win your vote. And some of them, Gmail detects as spam — which, let’s be honest, is spam — and automatically sends them directly into the Spam folder, sparing you from wasting time reading another political email. However, this will soon change.As reported by Axios and later confirmed by Google itself (via 9to5Google), Big G has filed a request with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to approve a program that will stop campaign emails from going into Gmail’s spam folder automatically.

In other words, this pilot program will allow emails from authorized candidates, political parties, and leadership political action committees registered with the FEC to be an exception to Gmail’s spam filters. However, these emails must also be compliant with Google’s phishing, malware, and illegal content policies.

But don’t worry, Google’s new program doesn’t mean you will be bombarded with campaign emails in the next election. You will still have control. When you receive such an email for the first time, Gmail will ask you if you want to continue getting campaign emails. Furthermore, if you have given your consent to receive such emails, you will be able to opt out later.

But you are probably wondering why Google wants to introduce such a program. Well, this month, Republican leadership filed legislation that would require email platforms — like Gmail — to reveal how their filters work. Republican leaders also want it to be illegal for campaign emails to be flagged directly as spam unless the user specifically requests it.

Furthermore, Big G was attacked with the accusation that its algorithms had deliberately marked nearly 70% of emails from Republican campaigns as spam during the elections in 2020. In response to that accusation, Google stated that the cause of this issue is not its algorithms but Gmail users reporting these emails as spam.

Also a spokesperson from Google has said, “We want Gmail to provide a great experience for all of our users, including minimizing unwanted email, but we do not filter emails based on political affiliation.”