Tech Desk 
Sep 02, 2025
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a warning to Google’s parent company, Alphabet, following accusations that Gmail’s spam filters may be disproportionately flagging emails from Republican senders.
In a letter written to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson raised concerns that the filters might be acting in a partisan way, which could hurt American consumers and violate the FTC Act's ban on unfair or deceptive trade practices.
According to Ferguson, emails tied to Republican fundraising efforts through the platform WinRed appear to be routed to users’ spam folders at a higher rate than those linked to the Democratic fundraising service ActBlue, which were reportedly unaffected.
Ferguson noted that if Gmail’s filtering practices are proven to discriminate along political lines, the issue could violate the FTC Act’s prohibition on unfair or deceptive trade practices, potentially leading to an investigation and enforcement action.
In response, a Google representative said that Gmail's spam filters use a variety of objective signals, such as user reports of spam, and are applied uniformly to all senders, irrespective of their political views.
The company stressed that these filters are applied equally across all political and non-political senders, regardless of viewpoint.
The company also noted that it would examine the letter and work with the FTC in a positive manner.
