\n<\/p>\n
Andrew Ferguson, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Trade Commission, recently expressed concern that \u201cAlphabet\u2019s administration of Gmail is designed to have partisan effects.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a letter addressed to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai<\/a>, Ferguson pointed to a recent story in the New York Post<\/a> describing complaints by Targeted Victory (a consulting and PR firm that\u2019s worked with the Republican National Committee and Elon Musk\u2019s X<\/a>) claiming that Gmail flags emails linking to the Republican fundraising platform WinRed as spam, without doing the same to emails linking to the Democratic platform ActBlue.<\/p>\n \u201cMy understanding from recent reporting is that Gmail\u2019s spam filters routinely block messages from reaching consumers when those messages come from Republican senders but fail to block similar messages sent by Democrats,\u201d Ferguson wrote.<\/p>\n He warned Alphabet that if Gmail\u2019s filters \u201ckeep Americans from receiving speech they expect, or donating as they see fit, the filters may harm American consumers and may violate the FTC Act\u2019s prohibition of unfair or deceptive trade practices,\u201d adding this could lead to \u201can FTC investigation and potential enforcement action.\u201d<\/p>\n In response, a Google spokesperson told Axios<\/a> that Gmail\u2019s spam filters \u201clook at a variety of objective signals \u2013 like whether people mark a particular email as spam, or if a particular ad agency is sending a high volume of emails that are often marked by people as spam,\u201d and they said the company applies this approach \u201cequally to all senders, regardless of political ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n The spokesperson also said, \u201cWe will review this letter and look forward to engaging constructively.\u201d<\/p>\n Conservatives frequently complain that they are being censored or otherwise treated unfairly by digital platforms, including Gmail. In 2023, the Federal Election Commission dismissed a complaint from Republicans<\/a> over Gmail\u2019s spam filters, and a federal court also dismissed an RNC lawsuit with similar complaints<\/a>. (The RNC seems to be reviving that lawsuit<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<\/span> Earlier this month, a federal judge blocked the FTC\u2019s investigation into the left-leaning group Media Matters<\/a> over its research into antisemitic content on X, describing the investigation as \u201ca retaliatory act.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 27-29, 2025<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n