This is a prime example of the private sector working, while Republicans crying fowl without knowing or caring that they are destroying the private sector solution.
Reminder that Google's response to the Republican claims is to RTFM when sending email marketing:
> Google denied the allegations, saying the spam filtering is based on actions taken by users. "As we have repeatedly said, we simply don't filter emails based on political affiliation," Google said in a statement provided to Ars. "Gmail's spam filters reflect users' actions. We provide training and guidelines to campaigns, we recently launched an FEC-approved pilot for political senders, and we continue to work to maximize email deliverability while minimizing unwanted spam." [1]
GMail isn't biased towards/away from Republicans. The users receiving those messages are training the spam filter to dislike their messages.
Getting regulators involved in this case is increasing nanny-state actions from the party that claims to hate the nanny-state.
> GMail isn't biased towards/away from Republicans. The users receiving those messages are training the spam filter to dislike their messages.
i think this highlights an interesting dynamic we’re seeing pretty often lately, groups are trying to force their beliefs and the recipients are saying “i’m not at all interested.”
it really seems reminiscent to what i’ve read about the 60s-90s religious groups where these groups were trying to force their personal religious beliefs onto society.
these groups are now suing to use government force to force companies to force their views onto all of us.
again:
> GMail isn't biased towards/away from Republicans. The users receiving those messages are training the spam filter to dislike their messages.
The capture and revolving door definitely goes both ways.
Although my comment may not be sufficient to prove anything, there's a lot to explore with this topic. For instance, here's an example in the other direction:
>more than 80 former Schumer staffers have gone on to subsequently work at the Big Tech firms. And Schumer's two daughters have also both worked directly for Big Tech—one for Amazon, and one for Facebook subsidiary Instagram.
This article is only about the one direction, but you can be sure the revolving door goes both ways in big-tech. Just look at all the ex-NATO officers currently wor
If Google (specifically GMail) is rent-seeking, the Republican lawsuit isn't an example of it.
The study Republicans cite only displayed a bias in the default training of a new email account that had never trained the spam filter:
> "Shahzad said while the spam filters demonstrated political biases in their 'default behavior' with newly created accounts, the trend shifted dramatically once they simulated having users put in their preferences by marking some messages as spam and others as not," the Post article said. [1]
In other words, Republican email messages are more likely to use spammy phrases. Once a user starts marking any messages as "mark as spam" or "move to inbox", the bias dissipates.
This is not anywhere close to a good example of rent seeking.
Reciving thousands of spam emails per user per day is ... not normal. If they weren't exxagerating then there must have some factors that saw them targeted specifically. I encoruage you to run your own mail server and publish your address on the web and see that the reality is pretty manageable without any filter.
In general, even if it works, it risks becoming captured by the same interests as direct government censorship.