RNC sues Google claiming campaign emails being sent to spam folders
The Republican National Committee is suing Google over documents it claims are being sent to spam folders in violation of terms of the search engine’s developer program.
If the committee wins, Google would have to pay $2,500 for each of the about 200 “spam” messages that appeared in spam folders, or $18,000 for all the messages that are in spam folders, it says in its lawsuit.
“It’s a very big and very bad penalty,” said Tom Lee, the president of American Marketing Practice, a law firm that represents Google. He said that in an estimated 3% of the spam messages that appear in the Google’s spam folder were sent by Republican committee members.
“It could be for their candidates’ website, it could be a press release, it could be a photo,” Mr. Lee said. “There’s no way of knowing which one, unless you get the sender’s email or phone number.”
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When Republican candidate Donald Trump won the state of New York on Tuesday, he set off a wave of speculation about his plans for the nation’s largest state.
Mr. Trump won almost 55 percent of the state’s vote. Among the winners were the Republican mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio — the mayor backed by Mr. Trump before the former businessman announced a week ago he would run for president — as well as two governors, Republican Chris Christie and Democrat Andrew Cuomo.
But there was one other winner that made more news: the Republican National Committee, which spent more than $12 million on advertising in the state in the run-up to the election.
While the state campaigns were underway, Google — the giant Internet search engine created in 1998 to help people find the information they want — was in the midst of negotiating with the Democratic committee, which is suing Google because, the committee claims, it is violating the terms of its developer program by continuing
