{"id":46725,"date":"2025-08-28T20:33:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T01:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=46725"},"modified":"2025-08-28T21:47:02","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T02:47:02","slug":"ftc-chair-alleges-partisan-filtering-by-gmail-google-says-spam-filters-not-ideological","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=46725","title":{"rendered":"FTC chair alleges partisan filtering by Gmail; Google says spam filters not ideological"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Summary<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Republicans have accused tech platforms of suppressing conservative views<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Tech platforms deny claims<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">FTC chair&#8217;s letter warns Google may face probe if it violates regulations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">WASHINGTON, Aug 28 (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson alleged that Gmail uses what the FTC calls partisan filtering and raised the issue in a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/system\/files\/ftc_gov\/pdf\/ferguson-letter-alphabet-ceo-re-potential-ftc-act-violations-related-to-partisan-administration-of-gmail.pdf\"><u>letter, opens new tab<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;to Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google parent company Alphabet&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/markets\/companies\/GOOGL.O\"><u>(GOOGL.O), opens new tab<\/u><\/a>, the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/news-events\/news\/press-releases\/2025\/08\/federal-trade-commission-chairman-andrew-n-ferguson-issues-letter-gmail-using-partisan-filtering\"><u>regulator, opens new tab<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;said on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;My understanding from recent reporting is that Gmail&#8217;s spam filters routinely block messages from reaching consumers when those messages come from Republican senders but fail to block similar messages sent by Democrats,&#8221; the letter released by the FTC said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">A Google spokesperson said Gmail&#8217;s spam filters apply equally to all, regardless of political ideology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Google has denied&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/legal\/transactional\/google-defeats-rnc-lawsuit-claiming-email-spam-filters-harmed-republican-2024-07-31\/\"><u>similar claims<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;from Republicans and conservatives in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Republicans have long accused big tech companies of discriminating against and suppressing conservative views, an assertion the companies deny. Many tech firms have in recent months aimed at building warm ties with Republican President&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/donald-trump\/\"><u>Donald Trump<\/u><\/a>, who took office in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The Google spokesperson said the company will review the letter and engage &#8220;constructively&#8221; on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Gmail&#8217;s spam filters look 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. This applies equally to all senders, regardless of political ideology,&#8221; the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The FTC chair&#8217;s letter warned the company that not being consistent with FTC regulations &#8220;could lead to an FTC investigation and potential enforcement action.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">A U.S. judge has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/legal\/transactional\/google-defeats-rnc-lawsuit-claiming-email-spam-filters-harmed-republican-2024-07-31\/\"><u>previously dismissed<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;the Republican National Committee&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/legal\/transactional\/google-defeats-republican-national-committees-spam-filter-lawsuit-us-court-2023-08-24\/\"><u>lawsuit<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;accusing Google of intentionally misdirecting the political party&#8217;s email messages to users&#8217; spam folders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/ftc-chair-alleges-partisan-filtering-by-gmail-google-says-spam-filters-not-2025-08-28\/\">reuters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON, Aug 28 (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson alleged that Gmail uses what the FTC calls partisan filtering and raised the issue in a&nbsp;letter, opens new tab&nbsp;to Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google parent company Alphabet&nbsp;(GOOGL.O), opens new tab, the&nbsp;regulator, opens new tab&nbsp;said on Thursday. &#8220;My understanding from recent reporting is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":46726,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1155],"tags":[2444,34518,2581,23916,34517],"class_list":["post-46725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-ftc","tag-gmail","tag-google","tag-ideology","tag-partisan-filtering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46725"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46727,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46725\/revisions\/46727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}