Are email service providers politically biased against Republicans?

Is Google at war with Republican candidates? The Republican National Committee and several others seem to think so, as it claims delivery of its emails to Gmail inboxes is nearly 0 percent, costing the party and candidates about $2 billion since 2019. The claims are based on a report from North Carolina State University, according to an RNC complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission.  

Is the spam problem that bad? After all, most political emails look like spam. Shouldn’t providers be permitted to identify political emails as spam? If providers were consistent at equally identifying political emails from the right and left as spam, perhaps. But according to a recent Google filing, Gmail may have a problem over-identifying Republican emails as spam. 

According to the RNC, Gmail’s bias causes major problems, because “Any disparity in the messages making it into recipients’ inboxes can have huge effects on message dissemination and fundraising during the critical months leading up to an election.” The filing further alleges that the filtering bias grew worse as election day neared.  

Some political emails do not fit the definition of spam, which is generally unsolicited emails that seek to sell something, like clothes or electronics. Many political emails are initially solicited, since people interested in a specific candidate may request email updates to learn where they can meet, or volunteer for, the candidate.  

Political emails start behaving more like spam when people receive updates and fundraising requests from candidates other than the one from which they requested.  

If email service providers equally identified political emails from Republicans and Democrats, this would not be a big deal. This isn’t the case, though, as Gmail is over 59 percent more likely to identify an email from a Republican candidate as spam compared to email from a Democrat.  

The story does not end here, as the NCSU report illustrates the spam filtering bias problem is bipartisan. While Gmail may target Republican emails, Yahoo and Outlook discriminate against Democratic emails.  

The report brings to light another problem. As providers seek to end the scourge of spam, a failure to think through how the methods impact solicited emails may be detrimental, as noted by the report’s authors. “[A]s many of the voters today rely on the information they see (or don’t see) online, [spam filtering] biases may have an unignorable impact on the outcomes of an election.” 

The NCSU report is far from perfect. The authors made some huge assumptions, but the general thesis that political emails are likely to end up in a spam folder rather than an inbox is accurate.  

First, the authors assume that the political nature of the emails is the primary reason for the identification as spam. The authors fail to account for the different methods or techniques providers apply when scanning emails to identify spam. While the researchers did not have access to the specific algorithms providers use, they should have at least acknowledged the variabilities of different approaches. 

Second, the authors used a small number of email addresses, studied only three providers, and used questionable methods to sign up for campaign emails. They averaged only about 34 accounts per provider and when signing up for emails, programmed a bot to do the work for them. Finally, the authors excluded the most popular email service provider, Apple.  

Because filtering political emails as spam may interfere with candidates’ ability to communicate with their supporters, Congress can step in and craft a solution that is acceptable to candidates, service providers and the general public.  

Most political emails are solicited, since people request updates from candidates. Congress should empower the FEC to act as a clearinghouse, working with registered candidate committees and political parties to identify sources of political emails. Service providers could rely on the whitelist the FEC creates, delivering initial emails to people’s inboxes. 

At the same time, providers should be free to respect people’s preferences. Congress can make it clear that providers are allowed to identify future political emails from a candidate or party as spam if a recipient identifies them as junk.

The NCSU report highlights a problem that too many political emails are identified as spam. Contrary to the RNC’s complaint, the problem is shared between Republicans and Democrats. Congress can solve this problem by empowering the FEC to coordinate with service providers, candidates, and political parties to create a whitelist while ensuring that providers can respect people’s email inbox preferences.