The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has given Google permission to stop classifying political campaign emails as spam despite criticism from the public. The business is currently running a test initiative in which all such emails will be delivered to your Gmail inbox.
Reports of Google planning to un-spam campaign emails from registered political parties in the US first emerged in June this year. The business sought to separate itself from any potential partisanship. Political organizations claimed that emails from one party were being flagged as spam more often than emails from the other. Naturally, nobody accepted the company’s claim of innocence in the case. Now, it wants to automatically exempt all such emails from spam filtering and let consumers make their own decisions in order to demonstrate the objectivity of its spam filter algorithm.
Google requested a consultative opinion on the issue from the FEC. The Commission took its time and asked the American public for feedback, extending the submission date so that more individuals could participate. Nobody was surprised to learn that almost all respondents were against the proposal. Nobody wants their Gmail inbox to be cluttered with emails from political campaigns.
Advertisement The FEC voted 4-1 in favor of Google last week despite fierce public resistance. The business does not have approval to move forward with its intended pilot. The IT behemoth told 9to5Google in a statement that it would keep track of customer feedback throughout the pilot to improve the way this modification is implemented.
Users of Gmail can manually opt out of receiving political emails. Users of Gmail will be able to actively opt out of getting emails from political campaigns in their inboxes according to Google. The first of these emails will have a noticeable notice asking consumers if they still want to receive emails from the sender. Like current spam warnings, this message will likely display on top of spam emails.
If you choose to proceed, nothing changes and the sender’s emails will still reach you. However, if you respond “no,” Gmail will move all ensuing communications from them to the spam folder. By designating the emails as not spam, you can undo this at any moment. Additionally, Google is mandating a one-click unsubscribe option in campaign emails. If they don’t want to receive the first email, they can do so at any moment.
Advertisement The objective of this pilot initiative, according to Google, is to evaluate alternate approaches to dealing with bulk sender concerns while offering consumers clear control over their inboxes to reduce unsolicited email.
