Google to leave Gmail users defenseless against unlimited political spam

The company’s latest bad idea will ruin email, fuel division and encourage America's worst liars and grifters.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) approved Google’s proposal to make political spam exempt from its Gmail spam filters.

What a horrible idea.

In order to qualify for guaranteed delivery to Gmail user inboxes, candidates, parties and political action committees (PACs) will have to apply for the program, making Google the arbiter of who is (and who is not) a legitimate political speaker and what is (and what is not) legitimate political speech.

Google dreamed up this rotten idea after being accused by Republicans for censoring Republican fundraising spam more than Democrat fundraising spam, enabling Democrats to raise more money.

The backdrop for all this is the aggressive, frequent and ubiquitous fundraising by Republican Donald Trump, which contains some of the most shockingly false, aggressively exploitative spam of any kind I’ve ever seen. It seems likely that Trump’s constant spam is related to spam filters stopping more GOP spam. Under Google’s proposal, the Trump spam would all get through.

Much of the money raise by Trump’s organization does not appear to go to candidates, campaigns or any other legitimate purpose, but instead appears to be pure grift, the simple exploitation of political loyalty for direct financial gain. Essentially, Trump runs a con under the protection of political speech.

Even other Republicans are shocked and horrified by Trump’s emails.

Much of Trump’s fundraising emails not only lies as part of a scheme to extract money, but also serves as a real-time direct pipeline to lie about any news that involves Trump. For example, the organization is fundraising off of the recent FBI raid on Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago. These emails, which would be exempt from Gmail’s spam filters entirely under Google’s new plan, contain lies designed to erode trust in society, government and law enforcement.

Another recent email campaign was designed to drum up support for purging the government and military of anyone who is not personally loyal to Trump.

This is the kind of disinformation that Russian policy spreads in the United States to divide and weaken society.

And this is the kind of disinformation that Google is planning to allow in everyone’s inboxes, instead of the “Spam” folder where it belongs.

Currently, political spam is incentivized by the existence of spam filters to evade those filters. They do this by being less “spammy” — by using normal speech, avoiding certain kinds of photos, typefaces and lies.

Under Google’s plan, these incentives will be removed, enabling political spammers to aggressively experiment with anything-goes testing of how to trick, manipulate and exploit citizens to get money, votes and, in Trump’s case, divide society and spread hate of fellow citizens.

Already, political spam is often more harmful to society than commercial spam.

Political speech in the United States has special protection. Specifically, it’s legal to lie in political advertising. Now, Google is planning to deliver those lies to your inbox every day.

By making Gmail a safe space for spam and lies, Google is cynically exposing society to new levels of divisive hate speech, lies and despair. And they’re exposing users to harm just so they can avoid a little criticism.

And while the savvy minority can protect themselves by switching to an email service that filters all spam or creating Gmail filters to create their own political spam filters, the most vulnerable citizens will see their inboxes filling up with horrible garbage they never signed up for.

Trump benefits. Grifters benefit. Liars benefit. And Google benefits. And everyone else pays the price.

This is the worst plan Google ever had. And they deserve all the scorn and ridicule we can heap upon them.

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Mike’s List of Brilliantly Bad Ideas

1. Heineken-themed sneakers are made with real beer

As far as I can tell, the only way to understand the insane world of branded sneakers is that a whole bunch of people with horrible taste is engaged in some kind of Hunger Games competition with each other to attract a huge consumer base with even more horrible taste — but willing to spend big — over increasingly gimmicky designs. Behold, the new contender: “Heinekicks” are the fruit of a collaboration between Heineken and designer Dominic Ciambrone. The shoes have a built in bottle opener and liquid padding in the soles consisting of — you guessed it! — Heineken beer. They’re selling only 32 pairs (equal to 5.3 six-packs).

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2. Keep your phone cool with this tiny parasol

Tesco Mobile is giving away tiny umbrellas for your phone. Looks dumb, but it actually cuts glare and reduces heat. Plus, it matches the umbrella in your drink.

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3. When PC modding and creative plumbing collide

A Youtuber going by the handle Basically Homeless has invented the toilet PC. No, it’s not a water-cooled PC, but a modified toilet that isolates the tank water with plexiglass to keep the PC components dry. In fact, it’s fan-cooled.

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Mike’s List of Shameless Self Promotions

1. What you need to know about the metaverse office of the future

2. Why your company should subscribe to podcasting

3. The past, present and future of endpoint management solutions

4. Don’t get too emotional about emotion-reading AI

5. How remote work will improve lives — and destroy cities

6. Why meetings don't work anymore

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CURRENT LOCATION: Oaxaca, Mexico

Me and my granddaughter, Princess Squishyface, in Oaxaca on a rainy day.