Overview
- Google quietly updated its Help Center and began contacting some political committees, and it says the Gmail Verified Sender Program will take effect on September 8, 2026.
- The program is open only to U.S.-registered political committees, candidates, parties, and PACs that verify their identity, authenticate domains through Campaign Verify, and register with Google Postmaster Tools.
- Eligible senders must keep spam complaints below 0.3 percent on a rolling 14-day average and meet other behavioral standards to maintain the delivery benefit.
- Google says users keep inbox controls such as mark-as-spam, block, and unsubscribe, but critics and privacy vendors warn the change removes an automatic layer of spam filtering and shifts the burden of sorting political mail to individuals.
- Supporters say the move could raise fundraising reach before the November midterms after years of Republican complaints about filtering, while Google retains the power to suspend or remove senders that break the rules.