- The US FTC President has written directly to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai
- Andrew Ferguson accuses Gmail of having “Partisan” spam -filters
- Google said filters “apply equally … regardless of political ideology”
FTC President Andrew Ferguson has accused Google of “Partisan” Gmail -Spam filtration that discriminates against certain political parties.
In a letter to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai dated August 28, 2025, Ferguson claimed that Republican collection -e emails are marked as spam, while Democratic E emails continue to be delivered successfully.
Ferguson warned that this could violate the FTC Act’s ban on unreasonable or misleading commercial practices, suggesting that an investigation and possible enforcement could be on the cards.
Gmail
“My understanding from recent reporting is that Gmail’s spam -filters routinely block messages from reaching consumers when these messages come from Republican senders but do not block similar messages sent by Democrats,” summarizes Ferguson.
The complaint quotes one New York Post Article that revealed that identical E emails with Winred (Republican) and ActBlue (Democratic) donation link were dealt with differently by Gmail.
Google has already responded to these accusations in the past, with the company’s spokesman José Castañeda said: “E -mail filter protection is in place to keep our users in security.”
The filters “apply equally to all senders, regardless of political ideology.”
“A consumer’s right to hear from candidates or parties, including requests for donations, has not diminished because the consumer’s political preferences may contradict your company’s or your employees’ political preferences,” Ferguson wrote.
This is not the first time Google has been accused of political bias in its Gmail -Spam filtration. By 2022, an RNC court case claimed that the company had unfairly filtered Republican E emails, but the US district law rejected the case on the basis of lack of evidence. RNC has since revived the matter.
Techradar Pro Have asked Google for an updated commented in response to FTC’s letter from August 2025 – Any response will be sent here.
