Last year, the New York Times issued a blistering report on the true victims of unethical email fundraising:¹

The Times found that the Trump campaign, as well as a few practitioners on the Democratic side, preyed on older Americans with outrageous, false emails that trick them into unwitting fundraising commitments―unknowingly making monthly, weekly, or even daily contributions. But now, Gmail is considering taking steps to make it easier for unethical political operatives to bilk seniors out of their earned benefits.

Sign now: Tell Gmail to STOP its plan to make it easier to send political spam!

Here’s how the scheme works: It’s a strategy called “churn and burn.” First, an unethical campaign buys a list of email addresses of unsuspecting people they view as likely to donate. Then, they start sending those unsuspecting people boatloads of email, soliciting money. During October and November of 2020, the Trump campaign was averaging 15 emails per day, using misleading tactics like fake countdown timers and pre-checked boxes doubling the intended donation, making a one-time donation a recurring donation, or both! Plenty of people unsubscribe. Others just hit “Spam,” which email providers like Gmail use to filter those messages out of other inboxes. Once that batch is burned out, go buy another list of email addresses.

Recently, Senator Marco Rubio complained that when his emails started ending up in people’s spam folders that it was a sign of Big Tech bias. So now, in the name of neutrality, Gmail is considering making it impossible to send a politician to Spam, no matter how many misleading emails they send you.

At Social Security Works, we send a lot of emails. But we are careful not to mislead you. We never have a countdown timer unless it’s actually counting down to something that matters. And while we value monthly donations, we would never trick someone into making one by accident. We don’t have big corporate donors―the vast majority of our budget comes from people making donations through emails like this one. That’s why we treat you with the same respect we would show the president of a foundation funding our critical work.

Donald Trump’s email program isn’t like that. Neither are far too many Democrats. But if Gmail’s plan goes through, it will make it much easier for politicians to keep treating you badly, and because it will make email inboxes a much more unpleasant place, it will make it harder for programs like ours to survive.

Please, stand up for your inbox and sign our petition to tell Gmail to stop its new political spam plan!

Thank you,

Michael Phelan
Social Security Works

¹ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/26/us/politics/recurring-donations-seniors.html