Google Backs Down After GOP Emails Flagged as ‘Dangerous’

After months of quietly burying Republican fundraising emails under the label of “dangerous,” Google is now promising changes but only after being confronted by the Trump administration and federal regulators.

According to a letter obtained by The Daily Wire, Google admitted to using a foreign third-party spam filter to target GOP emails a list that didn’t apply the same scrutiny to Democrat fundraising platforms like ActBlue.

The platform at the center of the scandal? WinRed the backbone of conservative grassroots fundraising. For weeks, Republican operatives noticed that Gmail was flagging emails containing WinRed links with alarming warning labels, scaring off potential donors and throttling conservative campaigns. Meanwhile, emails with ActBlue links used by Democrats skated through unharmed.

Here’s what we now know:

• Google used a Netherlands-based company called SURBL to help identify so-called “spam.”

• SURBL labeled WinRed as abusive, leading Gmail to warn users that GOP fundraising emails were potentially “dangerous.”

• After pressure from FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, Google finally admitted it no longer uses SURBL’s list and will rely on its own internal tools instead.

In the letter to Ferguson, Google’s Head of Federal Government Affairs Anne Wall claimed they took the matter “very seriously” but only after being caught.

“We stopped incorporating SURBL as a signal,” Wall wrote, assuring the FTC that Gmail would now handle spam filtering independently.

But the damage has already been done.

For years, conservatives have accused Big Tech of quietly manipulating online ecosystems to benefit the Left throttling traffic, censoring dissent, and now, choking off political donations behind the scenes.

As the Republican firm Targeted Victory warned in a recent memo:
“If Gmail is allowed to quietly suppress WinRed links while giving ActBlue a free pass, it will continue to tilt the playing field in ways that voters never see, but campaigns will feel every single day.”

Even Ferguson's letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledged the serious implications:
“If Gmail’s filters keep Americans from receiving speech they expect, or donating as they see fit, the filters may harm American consumers and may violate the FTC Act’s prohibition of unfair or deceptive trade practices.”

Let’s be blunt: this wasn’t just a technical glitch. This was election interference through digital discrimination. The same companies that ban conservative ads, deplatform right-leaning voices, and manipulate search results have now been caught red-handed suppressing political donations.

Google, of course, is spinning damage control noting that previous Republican complaints were dismissed by the FEC and a federal judge. But legal cover doesn’t mean ethical innocence.

Just because it didn’t land them in court doesn’t mean it didn’t rig the system.

The bigger question: how many millions in grassroots donations were lost during this silent sabotage?

While Google claims it will now “support political senders across the spectrum,” conservatives would be wise not to take Silicon Valley at its word. The only reason this change is happening is because they got caught.

And don’t expect this to be the last time.

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