Tulsi v. Google: 1st amended complaint

Friday the Tusli Gabbard campaign filed the expected first amended complaint against Google for suspending her adwords account immediately after the first Democratic debate. A full copy of the complaint is available.

red white and blue election stickers

First reading is that it’s only slightly better written than the first complaint. The document reads to me more like a policy statement than an actual lawsuit. Frankly, I’m about done with presidents and presidential campaigns that think they’re better than or above the rest of us citizens and that normal rules don’t apply to them. But, Tulsi appears to think being a presidential candidate means she gets special access and privileges.

140. Google has established a clear policy of using its power over speech to favor certain political viewpoints over others. For example, since June 2019, Google has used its unique control over political advertising and election speech to try to silence Tulsi Gabbard, a presidential candidate who has spoken out against Google.
141. But Tulsi will not be silenced. Google is trying to change the outcome of an American presidential election, and the government has been unwilling and unable to do anything about it. This action seeks to change that.

She’s also arguing that it’s unfair, so frightfully unfair, that the individuals working in the elections department at Google Ads support other candidates. The underlying implication being that she can only be treated fairly if her account manager is also a supporter of hers. I see this as a symptom of the incredibly polarised world we live in. Tulsi can’t believe anyone would treat her fairly unless they also support her for president.

My naive reading of the initial and first amended complaints leads me to believe that on the night of the first debate, the campaign tried to purchase a lot more ads than they had previously. This sudden increase in purchasing activity triggered some of Google’s anti-fraud detection algorithms and her adwords account was shut down temporarily. If I didn’t say it when I wrote about the first complaint, I’ll say it now: This is good behaviour. If something significant changes on an account, particularly a verified account belonging to a presidential candidate, then it should be shut down until the activity is verified.

I’ve heard some comments from friends and colleagues who are Google employees about the Podesta phish / DNC hack in the run up to the 2016 election. These comments, while vague and containing no details, lead me to think there was a significant internal push to make sure that Google would catch such types of compromises in the future.

Plus, I’m sure Google has limits on adwords account to make sure their customers aren’t surprised by excessive charges. Even verified accounts and even political accounts. The last thing they want is to hear is that the adwords bill won’t be paid because the charges weren’t authorised.

Then there’s this:
154. An actual controversy exists between the Campaign and Google as to whether Google’s policies and procedures, and their application thereof, violate the United States Constitution. The correct interpretation is that Google’s policies and procedures, facially and as applied, violate the Campaign’s speech and association rights under the United States Constitution

As long as I’ve been on the internet folks have been trying to argue that the first Amendment of the US constitution applies to private networks. I have yet to see any compelling argument that says it does. While there are bigger discussions to be had about the responsibilities of large internet providers, I don’t think they can or should be based on the first amendment.

I do think networks have a fundamental responsibility to stop abuse on their platform. All of the major networks, and many of the minor ones, have failed spectacularly at doing this. Just this weekend a Facebook friend shared this NYTimes article on the explosion of child sexual abuse material online (CW: child abuse and torture, this is a very difficult read) and how law enforcement and networks have utterly failed to effectively address the issue. There are days I think the Internet has contributed to more harm than good. Reading that article led to one of those days.

Related Posts

First amendment and spam

One common argument that spammers use to support their “right” to spam is that they have a first amendment right to free speech. My counter to this argument has always been that most networks are private and not government run and therefore there is no first amendment right involved. I have always hedged my bets with government offices, as these are technically government run and there may be first amendment issues involved if the government office blocks email.
Recently the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Ferrone v. Onorato, No. 07-4299, 2008 WL 4763257 (3rd Cir. October 31, 2008) addressing this issue specifically. Evan Brown at InternetCases has a post up about the court’s finding. He says:

Read More

I cannot feel the Bern.

On a lark (and to do my best to stay as informed as possible via primary sources) I decided to sign up for the official mailing lists of the Trump, Clinton, and Sanders campaigns.
Both Trump and Clinton were happy to take my email address and add it to their distribution lists, no confirmation required. Not terribly surprising, since they need to make it as easy as possible to get their messages out to anyone who will listen.
On to the Sanders campaign.
I… couldn’t figure out how to subscribe to Sanders’ mailing list.
I feel I must have missed something obvious. I’m certainly not saying that I’m a super-genius or anything… but, at the same time, if I can’t figure out how to get your mail, then it might just be that others are having similar problems.
The first obvious place to sign up for updates was the big blue “This is your movement” box. That route requires a donation to proceed. Back to the main page.
The next option would sign me up for mobile alerts. No thanks.
All the way at the bottom of the page, a final big blue box asks, “Are you ready?” Somewhat beyond ready, I entered my information, clicked “Join us” and held my breath.
I Cannot Feel the Bern
The “Form submission limit reached” error is likely indicative of the use of outsourced product or service being used to collect and manage contact information on behalf of the campaign. My actually seeing this error is indicative of insufficient testing of the site by the campaign.
I’m sure the developer promised a bulletproof site, and it seems the campaign took this on faith. But at least one thing fell through cracks, resulting in the campaign not just losing an avenue of communication with someone who has self-selected as interested, but also potentially diminishing that person’s opinion of how the campaign manages the finer points, and wondering how that ultimately reflects on the candidate. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether or not the campaign developed the site themselves or hired someone else to do it on their behalf. All that matters is that they put their name on it, and let it speak for their brand.
Campaigning is sales. Whether you’re selling a candidate or a stock portfolio or a hand-made product, when you invite your audience to interact with you online, they must find the experience to have been worth their time, otherwise they’re unlikely to take you up on any future invitations. In business, as in politics, there’s a lot on the line, communication is vital, and mastering digital interaction with the public is no longer optional.
And while I was writing this post, I started receiving mail from the Sanders’ campaign. So I guess I could subscribe after all.

Read More

Almost time to vote

I have to admit, the closer we get to election day the more distracted I’m getting. This will be the 8th presidential election I’m eligible to vote in and one I’m following closely. We even watched the 2nd debate live on the trip over to the UK.
electionemail
As with the 2008 and 2012 election, email marketing is a huge portion of candidate strategy. Many companies have been tracking how the candidates are using email. Return Path has pulled together a lot of interesting data on their Election Archives, and many other ESPs have thrown their two cents in when it comes to election email.
When this election season started, feels like 10-gazillion years ago now, I started signing up for different candidate lists to see what they were doing with email. I quickly fell behind when so many Republican candidates through their hat in the ring. By that point, I knew other folks were monitoring email and reporting on email and decided to drop the project. I just couldn’t keep up and other people could do it better.
We did comment on the Trump campaign spamming foreign leaders. I think it’s important to realize that deliverability rules don’t get thrown out the window simply because you have an important name or are running for president. A few years ago, one campaign was SBLed on election night and their ESP cut them off. I happen to know the person running compliance there and they supported that candidate but policies are policies.
We also shared a post from someone speculating about how Secy Clinton had access to a private server. The speculation was somewhat wrong, in that the server was already there and set up for Pres. Clinton when he left office. But other than that, much of the other stuff that’s come out has made it clear that email in the State Department was a total mess. I still think a private server was way more secure than an @gmail.com or @aol.com account; it was absolutely more secure than a Yahoo.com account.
This election is important, so I encourage all my readers to get out and vote next Tuesday. There’s more to vote on than just the presidency, too. Here in California we have something like 17 ballot initiatives. Yay, Democracy?
I suspect many folks are in a similar boat and finding it hard to concentrate on things beside the election. So much feels up in the air and important and it’s like we’re all holding our collective breath. After being in the UK last month, I realized how much elections have consequences. The falling pound made it great for us as visitors. But it’s not all sunshine and roses as companies try and sort out how they can absorb a loss in buying power on the open market.
Go vote. It’s important.
 
 

Read More