And I’m SO happy.

Gmail is the world’s most popular email provider, with almost 2BN users, and a big reason for that is its spam filter.

But now Google wants to allow emails from political campaigns to bypass Gmail’s spam filter, and the american Federal Election Commission (FEC) just gave Google the green light, with “significant” implications for all those two billions users:

• In the short term, this will likely dump on Gmail users far more political campaigning emails, that will now get through by default
• In the long term, this is a precedent for Google to potentially create exemptions in other areas, whether this is a specific category of email or paid partnerships.

Oh, and of course for Google this will mean (warning, uberunderstatement ahead…) “immense pressure from more controversial political groups to make the same exemptions”.

What is the reason for this change?

In my opinion, it is damage control, and to be fair I feel that this is the least bad thing Google is practically forced to do in the near future. If they let every political email through it means they are politically neutral, doesn’t it? Sure, leaving to the user to selectively block content “could still lead to a lot of frustration for Gmail users”. But not doing so may open the gates to floods of lawsuits, loss of reputation, especially in the already overpolarized (heck, another uberunderstatement, sorry) US political landscape. Back to Gmail…

Isn’t this wonderful?

“Handled poorly, Google risks destroying the very feature which established Gmail’s success”, says Forbes.

Good, I say. About time. Not just for (relatively) minor reasons like this or this. I say “about time” primarily because:

• Exactly thanks to Gmail, Google has all your email anyway, even if YOU never use Gmail
• Self-hosted email must return practical
• Virtual, Personal Email Servers (VPES) must become really viable for everybody, for all the reasons I spelled out in 2010

Let’s all demand VPES then, not Gmail. After 13 years, this may be the right time.