RNC Sues Google for ‘Throttling’ Its Emails to Donors, Supporters

Google as “a market-dominant communications firm” is unlawfully discriminating against the Republican National Committee by “throttling its email messages” because of the RNC’s political affiliation and views, alleged the committee in a pair of complaints Friday (dockets 2:22-at-01077 and 2:22-cv-01904) in U.S. District Court for Eastern California in Sacramento. “Google has relegated millions of RNC emails en masse to potential donors’ and supporters’ spam folders during pivotal points in election fundraising and community building,” said the RNC. “The timing of Google’s most egregious filtering is particularly damning,” it said. For most of each month, nearly all the RNC’s emails make it into users’ inboxes, but at about the same time at the end of each month, “Google sends to spam nearly all of the RNC’s emails,” it said. “Critically, and suspiciously, this end of the month period is historically when the RNC’s fundraising is most successful.” This discrimination has been ongoing for about 10 months, “despite the RNC’s best efforts to work with Google,” said the committee. The complaints allege violations of California’s common carrier law and other infractions, and seek preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to remedy Google’s violations of state and federal law. Google didn’t comment.