(RoyalPatriot.com )- Google is launching a pilot program that will change how political emails are delivered, according to Newsmax. The big tech company will launch its program seven weeks before the midterm elections, where political campaign emails will be prevented from going straight to users’ spam folder.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) approved the tech giant’s plan in August in an effort to allegedly bring balance to the political process after conservatives claimed that right wing emails were being sent to the spam folder more than Democrat emails.
Eligible political committees can soon register for participation in the program. Once the ball is rolling, political campaigns will not be affected by Google’s spam detection, although Google will reportedly maintain scanning for malware and phishing. While email users can still move political emails to the spam folder, this will require a manual setting.
Google spokesperson José Castañeda recently told Axios that the pilot will begin testing emails from both sides of the spectrum.
“We expect to begin the pilot with a small number of campaigns from both parties and will test whether these changes improve the user experience, and provide more certainty for senders during this election period,” he said. “We will continue to listen and respond to feedback as the pilot progresses.”
He also said that during the test run, “users will be in control through a more prominent unsubscribe button.”
While political campaigns may not push back on the new program, users have already been criticizing the program for potential abuses.
“Absolutely not. This is a terrible idea that would open the floodgates to even more spammy and abusive political advertisements. No,” said one user.
“Google’s idea to allow unsolicited political emails to bypass spam filtering has to be one of the most asinine ideas I’ve ever heard of. Such email is certainly spam, and needs to be treated as such,” said another.
Another claimed that he would “quit email altogether” if the political emails could not be blocked, citing his mental health as a concern.
