When the election comes, our inboxes are bombarded with tons of emails from candidates’ campaigns. They ask for a vote or promote their plans. These emails are as worthless as the candidates’ promises and do not find a better destination than the trash. Gmail traditionally sends political campaign emails to the spam folder, but it seems it wants to take a new approach. According to the report, Google recently filed a request to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), asking for permission not to send political campaign emails to the spam folder.
Political campaign emails will bypass Gmail’s spam filters
In other words, the emails sent from authorized candidates, political parties, and leadership political action committees registered with the FEC will appear in your inbox and can bypass the spam filters. Of course, Google says these emails must comply with the company’s phishing, malware, and illegal content policies. By the way, the news shouldn’t upset you because Google doesn’t want to fill your inbox with useless emails. The company says it surveys users about receiving more emails from the campaign. Further emails will go out after the user’s consent. You can later withdraw your consent and opt out of the program. “We want Gmail to provide a great experience for all of our users, including minimizing unwanted emails, but we do not filter emails based on political affiliation,” a Google spokesperson said. The reason behind Google’s decision to stop sending campaign emails to the spam folder is also interesting. This month, Republican leadership asked for a clarification on how the filters on email platforms work. The party also wants to stop flagging campaign emails as spam when users want to receive them. Google has now come under fire for flagging almost 70% of emails from Republican campaigns as spam during the elections in 2020. However, the company says the algorithms didn’t do it, and users reported those emails as spam.
