Federal Election Commission Makes The Right Call Allowing A Dumb Program By Google To Whitelist Political Spam Into Your Inbox
from the the-gop:-the-party-of-spam dept
Over the last few months, Republican politicians have been working on a nonsense plan to force their spam into your inboxes. This kicked off following some Republican operatives misunderstanding (whether through their own cluelessness, or on purpose) a study about political spam and how different email providers deal with it. Since then, Republicans have been screaming about how Google is trying to silence their campaign emails — even though their emails tend to be a lot more spammy. And then you have GOP digital marketing people being so clueless that they misconfigure their email settings, and blame Google for it, rather than realizing it was their own fault (the party of personal responsibility is no longer, it seems).
Anyway, faced with so much misplaced anger over all this, Google caved, and introduced a pilot program to whitelist political spam. It requested that the Federal Election Commission bless the program to make sure that it was not deemed an unauthorized in-kind political contribution. Like any such request, this was opened to public comment, and the public absolutely hated the idea. I mean, really, really, really hated it.
It turned into one of the most active items ever on the FEC’s docket, with over 2600 comments on the initial proposal, and another 100 on the draft opinions the FEC released (one in favor of the program, and one rejecting it) and almost all universally spoke out against political spam and asked the FEC to reject the program.
Except, of course, the petition was not about whether or not political spam is good or bad, or whether or not Google’s whitelisting plan was good or bad. It was just about whether or not it constituted an in-kind contribution that would trigger campaign finance laws. And there’s really no reasonable way to argue that it should trigger such laws. And, so, the FEC has (quite reluctantly) given its blessing to the program.
This is the right call, legally speaking. This kind of service shouldn’t be seen as an in-kind contribution, and it sounds like all but one of the FEC commissioners realized that. Ellen Weintraub disagreed, calling it an in-kind contribution, and pushed forth the draft opinion rejecting the program. Weintraub argued that this kind of thing — avoiding spam filters — seems like something of value that lots of others would want, and to only offer it to campaigns suggests that political actors are getting something special, which (to her) is an in-kind contribution. Google responded to that in noting that this is being offered equally across the board to any campaign, and the issue of in-kind contribution tends to be one that is focused on trying to influence an election one way or the other — and this is not designed to do that.
Other commissioners noted, correctly, that even as they disliked the very idea of the program, there was no legal basis to block it. You can see the discussion in the video below, starting at 5 minutes and 40 seconds.
It’s actually pretty interesting to watch the discussion. Commissioners repeatedly try to dig down on just why Google is doing this, and even ask Google’s lawyer directly if it’s in response to Republicans whining about this. The Google lawyer diplomatically tap dances around that, even though that’s obviously what’s going on here.
Since Google keeps insisting its trying this pilot program for commercial, not political reasons, one commissioner asks Google’s lawyer if she’s aware of the universal anger in the comments to the program — leading her to note that they’re paying attention to all sorts of feedback and that’s why this is a “pilot” program, to see how users actually like it.
Of course, that all feels like a smokescreen. Google is doing this to try to calm down technically ignorant, but very angry, Republicans. Of course, saying that then makes this feel more like a political move — not necessarily to benefit one party, but to stop it from attacking the company so much (not that that will actually work).
It would be nice if people could just admit that the Republicans pushing for all this are a bunch of tech-clueless children, but apparently that’s not allowed to be part of the discussion.
One commissioner, Dara Lindenbaum, who only recently joined the Commission, noted that she was supporting the approval of the pilot program even though “I don’t want to, and it is for the same reason all the commenters don’t want to.” But, as she notes, the precedents all support the program, and she (rightly) fears that rejecting it could hinder future innovations and pilot programs for politicians that would be useful. So, even though this program is about spam — and people rightly have a negative feeling about spam — that’s not really the issue for the FEC to decide. Rather it’s whether or not this program is a problematic in-kind contribution, and all but Weintraub couldn’t see how it could be seen as one.
Again, this is annoying, but it’s right from a legal standpoint. One hopes that Google quickly discovers that with this program users absolutely loathe it and political spam, and they decide not to expand this program, but to shutter it.
But, congrats to the technically clueless Republicans out there who are forcing more spam into everyone’s in-boxes. I hope that Democrats start campaigning on just how much you want to seize people’s inboxes for your annoying spam.
Filed Under: election finance, emails, fec, gmail, gop, in-kind contribution, pilot program, spam
Companies: google
Comments on “Federal Election Commission Makes The Right Call Allowing A Dumb Program By Google To Whitelist Political Spam Into Your Inbox”
Waiting for a troll to say “MiKe MaSnIcK iS a ShIlL fOr GoOgLe” in 5…4…3…2…
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I hope republicans start complaining on just how much you want to kill innocent unborn babies who are an inconvenience. (Rape & medical excluded of course)
Re:
I’m in a bad headspace right now and I need to take a few days to myself to get my shit together, so I’mma just tell you that abortion bans will kill pregnant people and leave you with that
Re: Cool story slaver
Coming from someone who wants to strip the bodily autonomy of women the second they get pregnant, giving corpses more bodily autonomy than pregnant women you don’t exactly have a high horse to be preaching from.
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I hope republicans start complaining on just how much you want to kill innocent unborn babies who are an inconvenience.
That’s never happened in the clinic I work at, bit keep repeating that bullpuckey and it may just happen, starting with Republicans-to-be. After all, you’re the biggest inconveniences in America.
Re:
I thought you all were doing this to protect life? That pregnancy might be the result of rape, but that isn’t the child’s fault. You’re willing to allow the murder of an “innocent unborn baby” because of the actions of its parent? Wow. Some protector of life you are.
Or maybe it’s not about “protecting life” at all?
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No moral, sane person would.
Google Political Spam Whitelist
While I don’t want the email to end up in my inbox, this might require the political email to adhere to a set of rules making it easier to filter.
Missed opportunity
Darned. We missed a golden opportunity for the FEC to impose a Fairness Rule which would allow one spam message through their filters for each spam message allowed through for the other side. Voters on both sides would appreciate that a political party could win votes by not sending out spam.
Just grow a pair already...
Since Google keeps insisting its trying this pilot program for commercial, not political reasons, one commissioner asks Google’s lawyer if she’s aware of the universal anger in the comments to the program — leading her to note that they’re paying attention to all sorts of feedback and that’s why this is a “pilot” program, to see how users actually like it.
It would be ever so nice if Google wasn’t such a bloody coward and just admitted that yes, they caved to a bunch of whiny republicans and that’s why they’re even considering this. It’s not like anyone paying attention is likely to be fooled into thinking this isn’t in response to political pressure so by trying to act as though this was entirely their choice they just leave themselves looking gutless, easy to push around and allow the ones who pressured them off the hook.
With responses like this it’s no wonder politicians of both parties feel safe in smacking tech companies around so much and so often, in their shoes I’d feel confident doing it too.
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Logged in to make pretty much exactly this comment.
It’s like trying to appease the copyright maximalists, giving an inch never stops at the first inch.
get an auto-responder. start sending hundreds of GIGABYTES of “fuck off” responses to this unwanted malicious spam.
Re:
A simple geometric progression should work.
A 1K “please unsubscribe me” message the first time.
A 2k “unsubscribe me as per my previous message and relevant law” for the second.
A 4k “Unsubscribe me, and here’s the law in question, and by the way this is being copied to my state’s Attorney General” for the third.
An 8k “I hope you realize, this means war” for the fourth.
And beyond that you start in with the goatse images.
You might be tempted to use an exponential progression, but that doesn’t leave room for the message to the Attorney General. … and after the attachments reach 4 GB or so, you may yourself get filtered. So be sure to send them multiple times, just shy of the filtering point, to addresses they can’t simply shut off.
Identification
I propose a slight amendment, whereby any such whitelisted political spam is clearly identified as having benefited from this wonderful policy. I will definitely want to route them for special attention.
If I wanted more spam from liars and cheaters and traitors, then I could easily sign up for it by going to their various sites and just doing that. Spam of any kind is a true invasion of privacy and a form of digital trespass, but political spam is the worst of the worst. I’ll send all Gmail to Spam before I tolerate this sort of junk in my Inbox. At which point, will I even need a Gmail account?
Federal Election Commission Makes The Right Call Allowing A Dumb Program By Google To Whitelist Political Spam Into Your Inbox
Whoever the hell you are, will you please return the real Mike Masnick and stop posting as him?
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What in this post seems unlike me?
Re: Re:
Praising a bad policy decision.
Re: Re: Re:
You have a weird definition of praise.
Re: Re: Re:2
Not as weird as your idea of disapproval.
Re: Re: Re:3
I haven’t even mentioned my approval or disapproval, so perhaps it’s all in your head?
Re: Re: Re:4
I haven’t even mentioned my approval…
And since when does praise not a part of approval, liar? An implicit mention is the same as an explicit one.
Re: Re: Re:5
I see you don’t understand the meaning of words at all, let me give you a little refresher of the definition of praising (you know, the verb used):
1: to express a favorable judgment of : COMMEND
2: to glorify (a god or saint) especially by the attribution of perfections
Of course, you are entitled to think that praise means ‘Again, this is annoying, but it’s right from a legal standpoint‘ but it doesn’t paint a pretty picture of your mental acumen since you apparently can’t distinguish between acknowledgement and approval.
Re: Ikr
Yeah, Mike has his head up his rear if he thinks Google getting reamed by congress to compel republican spam as not a first amendment issue. Because compelled speech is just what this is. And we get misleading spam to boot.
Re: Re:
Actually, this isn’t Google getting reamed by Congress to compel political speech, this is Gmail seeking permission from the Federal Electoral Commission to run end rings around the First Amendment to compel political speech as a private company.
This kind of service shouldn’t be seen as an in-kind contribution, and it sounds like all but one of the FEC commissioners didn’t realize that.
FTFY. When political spam is whitelisted, but commercial spam isn’t, politicians are effectively being given an in-kind contribution. Why can’t you see that, Mike? Ellen Weintraub is right on the money in this case.
But?
On subject, I do not want their political spam, I therefore want to enforce my right of not having them intrude into my space.
In my earlier days, I hated the weekend. Why, you say? I was a first aid trained fireman, on a volly company. Fri, sat, sun and mon, we transported at least one dying girl to the hospital. Every weekend,
Cattle abortions, excess salt packing, until roe vs Wade. Then the medical society could save them.prior to that, the street abortion killed at least one angel per weekend.
just mark it as spam...
If several thousand pissed off people mark every peice of political spam as junk, won’t Google’s automatic filters then prevent that PAC from sending any mail at all to google users?
Re:
That’s the danger. When Republican spam is no longer getting through to anyone, the GOP will scream for more favors, and if Gmail gives in again, the GOP will just want even more when the next measure fails to work due to user engagement. Being far right isn’t the only way in which the Republicans are like Adolf Hitler, and Gmail needs to roll back its appeasement policy.
Spam, click, spam, click
Democrat spam.
Republican spam
Green spam
Patriot spam
Libertarian spam
Whig party spam
Why is my PayPal receipt in spam? Bad google, naughty. No dinner for you.