Gmail users “hard pass” on plan to let political emails bypass spam filters

Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto)

Earlier this month, Google sent a request to the Federal Election Commission seeking an advisory opinion on the potential launch of a pilot program that would allow political committees to bypass spam filters and instead deliver political emails to the primary inboxes of Gmail users. During a public commenting period that's still ongoing, most people commenting have expressed staunch opposition for various reasons that they're hoping the FEC will consider.

"Hard pass," wrote a commenter called Katie H. "Please do not allow Google to open up Pandora's Box on the people by allowing campaign/political emails to bypass spam filters."

Out of 48 comments submitted as of July 11, only two commenters voiced support so far for Google's pilot program, which seeks to deliver more unsolicited political emails to Gmail users instead of marking them as spam. The rest of the commenters opposed the program, raising a range of concerns, including the potential for the policy to degrade user experience, introduce security risks, and even possibly unfairly influence future elections.