rnc
Eric Goldman is Associate Dean of Research, Professor of Law and Co-Director, High Tech Law Institute, at Santa Clara University. And he blogs about legal stuff, often stuff relating to the internet and privacy. I find his blog a must read. So he’s a good guy to turn to when you want quality analysis of the RNC’s first round loss in their lawsuit against Google. And here it is, perhaps a bit delayed, but still worth reading.
Mike Masnick from Techdirt’s got a scathing breakdown of how the judge just wasn’t buying what the RNC was selling; derisively detailing their failure to prove Google bias against right-wing political senders. It’s definitely worth a read. He closes with saying that with election season upcoming, maybe that will spur the RNC to appeal the ruling. Who’s he kidding? We know this isn’t the end of it.
Remember that the RNC had sued Google, alleging that RNC emails were being unfairly dropped into Gmail spam folders due to political animus on the part of Google? Well, so far, things aren’t going in the RNC’s favor. Judge Daniel Calabretta said that while it was a “close case,” the political committee had not “sufficiently pled that Google acted in bad faith.” The judge is leaving room for the RNC to re-file, so I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ve heard of this. Read more here and here.
Axios, the Washington Post, and others are reporting that the Gmail political email pilot program is coming to an end.Axios buries the lede on this one — putting the important bit (to me) at the very end: “Google’s pilot email program, which saw more than 100 political committees participate, will end January 31, and the company is evaluating next steps.”More from the Washington Post: “The company will let the program sunset at the end of January instead of prolonging it, Google’s lawyers said in a filing on Monday.” The filing is an attempt to get the RNC “unfair spam filtering” lawsuit against Google dismissed. How the shutdown of the pilot program ties to that effort, I am not equipped enough to say at the moment, but I’ll be curious to learn more.
Mike Scarcella, reporting for Reuters: Google has hired law firm Perkins Coie to help defend it against the RNC’s spam filtering lawsuit. “While Perkins long has provided legal services to the Democratic National Committee in matters of political law, and to political candidates, most of the lawyers fielded to defend against the RNC’s claims focus on privacy, security and business litigation.” Read it all here.
Blake E. Reid, writing for LAWFLARE breaks down the legal merits of the Republic National Committee’s lawsuit against Google over Gmail’s spam filtering. Starting with, “the trouble with the RNC’s pointillistic arguments is that they invoke a bunch of different laws that apply different rules to different kinds of platforms in different contexts.” It’s a good read and I found it full of insight. Check it out here.