A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a Republican National Committee lawsuit alleging that Google’s email spam filters illegally suppressed their missives, dealing the campaign group a crushing blow in a lengthy battle that has riled conservative lawmakers in Washington.
U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Calabretta wrote that while it was a “close case,” the RNC had not “sufficiently pled that Google acted in bad faith” by filtering their messages into spam filters in its popular Gmail service.
Calabretta is a Democratic appointee, so naturally he ruled against the Republicans. But I'm not sure he had much choice anyway. Despite his pro forma claim that this was a "close case," it was probably a slam dunk. Google is a private company and its spam algorithms were created years ago with no political effects in mind.
The real problem is that Republican emails tend to be more spammy than Democratic emails. Live by the spam, die by the spam.
In other words, it looks like their account must be hacked because no one in their right mind would send something like that out. Oh, never mind....
Well, who doesn't check their spam file at least daily? The "algorithm" can learn which of your spammy spam that you actually like, and meanwhile, it's right there for you to read and send money through.
Why is the edit comment function gone?
Is it? I’ll see if I have the option on this reply.
Hmm, does seem to be gone.
I concur
and after the maintenance cycle...it's WORKing
I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that Republican emails are more likely to trigger a hit on the spam button. I know for a fact that they won't take shut up for an answer. Nikki Haley has kept texting me for weeks after I told her to stop. And she keeps texting my dead dad on my phone too. And I can't block her because the number keeps changing.
Google is a private company and its spam algorithms were created years ago with no political effects in mind.
Even if did have political effects in mind—it wanted to keep the Weaken America Party from spreading its destructive nihilism—would that be illegal? Private firms have first amendment rights, correct?
I've noticed an increasingly brazen attitude on the part of right wingers to construe free speech rights to mean private entities can't censor their bullshit. Which is risible.
Yeah Google could say we will only send email from People named Mike and it would be legal. It would be a stupid business model, but one they are free to implement if they wanted to.
"...and it would be legal. .."
Not entirely clear. I believe there are rules about "common carriers" that might apply.
Email is an information service, and is not a common carrier under the Communications Act. If they were common carrier, the way spam filters would work would be vastly different, and painful for the user.
What the fuck does this mean? "Calabretta is a Democratic appointee, so naturally he ruled against the Republicans."
The statement, "Calabretta is a Democratic appointee, so naturally he ruled against the Republicans.", means that Kevin has abandoned idealism for realism.
While it is both useful and comforting to believe in an impartial judiciary, the judiciary is not, in fact, impartial to party leanings.
The Rule of Law is hugely important to civilized society, but it actually goes against natural human inclinations, which are to form an unshakeable opinion about something first, and then look for corroborating evidence to support that view.
Judges are not immune to this. They don't stop being humans when they become judges, and that's a good thing, actually.
I suspect Kevin's comment is ironic -- it's what a MAGA type would think, of course, but Kevin's take is probably more nuanced.
It means Kevin omitted the ‘snark’ tags?
I guess that I must have the wrong Gmail spam filter on my account, since my spam file is filled with emails from democrats and progressive PACs asking me for money (along with the usual spam emails selling pills for "shlong" enlargement).