A federal judge on July 31 tossed a lawsuit brought by the Republican National Committee (RNC) over Google routing the RNC’s emails to recipients’ spam folders.
“While the RNC may be correct that Google’s alleged conduct (if proven) is ‘unfair’ in a colloquial sense, the RNC is unable to point to any legislative policy that is implicated by the alleged conduct. Nor can it point to a sufficient harm to users of Gmail—which is the focus of the UCL—that would suggest Google’s practices are unfair,” the judge said in a 27-page decision.
“And the RNC has not shown that Google’s alleged conduct has violated any other law, which is a necessary element of intentional interference with economic relations.”
After a judge dismissed the suit, the committee filed an amended lawsuit that states that officials tried engaging with Google but that the company kept suppressing the organization’s emails until the legal action was brought.
“California law prohibits Google’s spam filtration of RNC emails based on political affiliation and views,” the suit reads.
The judge said the updated filing made it at least plausible that Google acted in bad faith since it stopped the diversion to spam folders after the RNC filed suit, making Google liable despite the Communications Decency Act immunity often enjoyed by big tech companies.
However, the RNC has not shown any violations of the UCL, which bars “any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice and unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising,” he said.
The RNC also failed in its arguments that Google is a common carrier and intentionally interfered with economic relations because Google isn’t a common carrier and the RNC did not show the probability of benefitting economically from its emails had they not been diverted to spam, according to the ruling.
“The RNC has alleged only that the users requested RNC emails, engaged with the emails, and have donated in the past without any other facts to establish that these users would donate in the future,” the judge said. “The RNC has failed to point to any case where a past economic relationship standing alone was enough to show the reasonable probability of a future benefit, and the court has been unable to find one in its own review.”
The RNC didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“We welcome the court’s decision,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement to media outlets. “We will continue investing in spam-filtering technologies that protect people from unwanted emails while still allowing senders to reach the inboxes of users who want their messages.”
