Gmail will soon give its users what they REALLY deserve

(Paywall-free popularization like this is what I do for a living. To support me, see the end of this post)

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:

Gmail will soon give its users what they REALLY deserve /img/gmail-sucks.jpg
  • 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:

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

Who writes this, why, and how to help

I am Marco Fioretti, tech writer and aspiring polymath doing human-digital research and popularization.
I do it because YOUR civil rights and the quality of YOUR life depend every year more on how software is used AROUND you.

To this end, I have already shared more than a million words on this blog, without any paywall or user tracking, and am sharing the next million through a newsletter, also without any paywall.

The more direct support I get, the more I can continue to inform for free parents, teachers, decision makers, and everybody else who should know more stuff like this. You can support me with paid subscriptions to my newsletter, donations via PayPal (mfioretti@nexaima.net) or LiberaPay, or in any of the other ways listed here.THANKS for your support!