Daniel Calabrett, Judge of the US District Court, recently rejected the Claim of the Republican National Committee (RNA) against Google. The claim alleged that Google redirected the electronic letters of the committee to the spam folder of Gmail. The judge ruled that RNA’s claims “fail from a legal point of view.” Additionally, Google is protected from liability under the 230th article of the law on decoration in the field of telecommunications, which exempts Internet companies from responsibility for user-generated content.
In order to reject the lawsuit based on the 230th article, the judge had to determine if Google acted unscrupulously by purposefully sending RNA letters to spam. The court did not find sufficient evidence that Google did this for political or any other reasons. It appears that the postal filtering system was adjusted automatically due to many users marking the RNA letters as spam.
Judge Calabrett stated, “The statement of the RNA that Google was acting ‘unscrupulous’ does not go beyond the speculative level.”
Hoogle representatives supported the court’s decision and assured that they will continue developing spam filtering technologies that protect people from unwanted emails without limiting senders, especially at the level of the Republican National Committee. RNA has not yet commented on the court’s decision, but chairman Ronna McDaniel said that the case is not yet completed. Republicans intend to file a corrected complaint, although it is unclear if they can provide more convincing evidence of Google’s bias.
The lawsuit presented by RNA included 7 points, all of which were rejected by the judge. However, Calabrett allowed the Republicans to amend the 3rd and 4th points, which claimed that Google violated the law on unfair competition in California and hindered RNA’s ability to earn money.
The lawsuit was initiated based on research published in March 2022, which allegedly proved Google’s bias against Republicans according to RNA. However, the authors of the study themselves then clarified that their conclusions do not support the committee’s current position.
Nevertheless, the Republicans filed a complaint with the US Federal Election Commission, making similar accusations against Google as in California. However, their claims were also rejected in January 2023.
Therefore, it remains uncertain whether RNA will succeed in its case against Google even after submitting a corrected claim. According to Calabretta, RNA will need to present a more plausible theory of injustice or illegality by Google, something the Republicans have yet to accomplish.