Google Lacked ‘Good Faith’ When It Sent RNC’s Emails to Spam, Says Amended Complaint

The Republican National Committee’s case against Google is about a market-dominant communications firm “unlawfully discriminating” against the RNC “by relegating its email messages to subscribers’ spam folders because of the RNC’s political affiliation and views,” said the RNC’s first amended complaint Tuesday (docket 2:22-cv-01904) in U.S. District Court for Eastern California in Sacramento. U.S. District Judge Daniel Calabretta, in an Aug. 24 order, granted Google’s motion to dismiss the RNC’s original complaint but also granted the committee partial leave to amend to establish that Google didn’t act in good faith (see 2308250030).

Google’s discrimination went on for about 10 months, “despite the RNC’s best efforts to work with Google” to correct the problem, said the amended complaint. Throughout 2022, the RNC engaged with Google “month after month to obtain an explanation and a solution,” it said. But at every turn, the RNC “was met with empty excuses and useless solutions,” it said. Google “continued to suppress the RNC’s emails,” and then Google fell silent, refusing to discuss the issue further, it said.

The “only reasonable inference” is that Google was intentionally sending critical RNC emails to the spam folder because it was the RNC sending them, said the amended complaint. Google’s “bad-faith discrimination” has already caused the RNC to lose valuable revenue in lost donations, and its conduct “will continue to cost the RNC further revenue,” it said: “This harm is irreparable.”

Google’s conduct changed after Oct. 21, when the RNC filed its original lawsuit (see 2210260080), said the amended complaint. Since then, Google “has stopped the mass relegation of RNC emails to subscribers’ spam folders,” it said. That’s not because the RNC “has done anything materially different,” it said. If Google’s explanations were “legitimate,” the RNC’s emails “should have continued going to spam,” it said: “Yet no en masse diversion occurred then or thereafter.”

The “post-lawsuit” timing of Google’s “ceasefire in discrimination is damning,” said the amended complaint. It shows Google “was feigning misunderstanding the problem when it actually knew how to stop relegating the RNC’s emails to spam the whole time,” it said.

Google’s spam filtering “need not be intentional,” said the amended complaint. “But the most reasonable inference is that it is intentional,” it said. Google’s conduct “at the very least lacks good faith and is negligent and unreasonable,” and violates California law, it said.

Common-carrier law doesn’t require a showing of "intentional discrimination,” said the amended complaint. “Neither do common-law claims like negligent interference with prospective relations,” it said. “Neither does California’s unfair-practices law,” it said. In the end, Google “violated the law, cost the RNC numerous donations and substantial revenue, and irreparably injured the RNC’s relationship with its community,” it said.

The RNC seeks an order “declaring unlawful and enjoining Google’s diversion of the RNC’s communications to its supporters that use Google’s Gmail service,” said the amended complaint. It also seeks “all other appropriate remedies authorized by law,” including compensatory, statutory and punitive damages, plus attorneys’ fees, it said.