Republicans Ignore Door Opened for Them and Sue Google ⇥ axios.com

Hey, remember when an academic study found emails from U.S. Republican candidates and officials were slightly more likely to be sent to Gmail’s spam folder than emails from Democrats? In response, Google made up a whole exemption program specifically for political emails.

Makena Kelly, reporting for the Verge earlier this month:

A source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Verge that, nearly a month after the pilot’s launch, the RNC has not joined or even applied for the program, even as the party continues to mount political and possibly legal pressure against Google. The RNC did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding the committee’s decision to abstain from the pilot program.

Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee has continued to send out emails promising subscribers the “GOLDEN TRUMP” award if they donate money within the hour. They really sent that email. And they also sent one with the subject line “READ THIS MESSAGE IMMEDIATELY”. And they pretend to wonder why these kinds of messages get marked as spam.

Sara Fischer and Ashley Gold, Axios:

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has filed a lawsuit against Google in a U.S. district court in California for allegedly putting its campaign emails in the spam folders of its millions of users.

Fischer and Gold independently confirmed Kelly’s report, too.

Anyone who has worked on an email marketing campaign knows there are things you should avoid doing in email because they increase the likelihood of being caught in a spam filter. Republican candidates seem to ignore many of those best practices. Google has even given all U.S. political parties a means to avoid its spam traps, but the RNC has not accepted that gracious offer. This lawsuit is transparently ridiculous.