This file contains archived live captions of the open meeting of the Federal Election Commission held on August 11, 2022. This file is not a transcript of the meeting, and it has not been reviewed for accuracy or approved by the Federal Election Commission. [Captions begin roughly 40 seconds after the start of the meeting due to captioner technical issues] >> Thank you very much. All in favor? The motion is unanimous. Before moving to the substance of the agenda, I'm going to take the prerogative at our last meeting, I had the sad thing to say farewell to be then vice chair and Commissioner . He was a close and dear colleague. It's strange not having him here. But, today I have a somewhat happier duty of welcoming -- for her first open meeting. I will not delay it. She comes with an enormous amount of experience. It's a privilege to have her here. Welcome. We want the moment not go unnoticed. This is the first time there've been six commissioners in the human room in five years. With you arriving on an auspicious date. After those remarks, let's move to the agenda. The first item is draft advisory opinion 2022 e- 13. The leadership PACs. We are also joined by --. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning commissioners. Agenda document 22 e- 35 a is a response to an advisory opinion submitted by the Alan Gross. In Northern Leadership PAC. Dr. Ellen's girls was a candidate for the Senate it in 2020 and candidate of the United States rips the native in 2022. Northern Leadership PAC is sponsored by Dr. Gross. Requesters ask whether the committee can commit to an authorized committee of his campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives. Or alternatively, the circulation is the campaign committee of the 2020 campaign for the United States Senate. It concludes that the committee may choose other option. I will happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Any questions for the Council or requester? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have a counsel for the requester here, some interested anything that Nathan needs to know or the commissions needs to know where the comments might have on the draft that the commission made public. Get. Thank you for the question. On behalf of the requester, we believe the draft adequately characterizes the facts in the submission. And we wholeheartedly agree with the conclusion in the draft. Especially the guardrails that are put in place. The two . Any further discussions? Or questions? Thank you, Mr. question. All opinions are limited to the fact that in front of us, [ Indiscernible - muffled ] thank you, Commissioner. Anyone in the audience were not as familiar with the process, that point is literally the last paragraph of the opinion paragraph. For the discussions? Any motions? >> All right. Mr. Chairman, with respect to advisory opinion 22 e- 13, Dr. Alan Gross, the Northern Leadership PAC's, I'm with approve it in a document No. 22-35-A Draft A. Thank you Madam vice chair. Any discussion for the motion? All in favor? The motion is carried endlessly thank you very much, counselor the next night on the agenda is drafted opinion 2022 that's 14. We are joined by counsel for Google. As well as, we also joining us in this matter? Welcome again. And go for it. >> Documents No. 22-37-A Draft A and 37 best be . The requester asks whether it may offer pilot program to test new design features at no cost on a nonpartisan basis to authorize care committees , political party committees and leadership PACs. Draft a concludes the pilot program will be permissible under the regulations. It will result in the making of prohibited contributions by the corporation. Draft be concludes the program is not permissible under the regulations. As a result in making in-kind contributions. We received 2041 comments on the request. And one of her comments on the draft. We received supplementary material from requesters regarding a technical feature of the proposed pilot program. This is reflected in draft me or not draft a. For I want to thank Google for being here today. We have a number of comments on draft day. But draft me was late submitted. I wonder if Google had any comments from going regarding No. 22-35-A Draft A. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you today. Let me just say it's a pleasure to be back before the commission. And Google and I appreciate the consideration of the request. I like to extend a warm welcome and congratulations to --. Thank you to the Officer and General Counsel on the division in particular for their attention and hard work on the request during the busy season. Google is currently looking for ways to enhance and improve products to better serve its uses. It receives speed back about Gmail for both users and vendors. We appreciate comments have been received. The purpose of the program is to test whether modifications enhance or degrade the user experience. We are seeking equivocation from commissions to ensure the program would not run afoul. We are happy to answer any questions you have on the request. Thank you. Google is currently using spam filters on political emails. Is that correct? That is correct. Explain how the process works. How is an email identified a span and spam going through. Sure. There's a lot behind it. At a high level, there are three parts to the spam filter operations. First, there is fishing, malware, malicious content. It's ruled out. That's content that is made to harm a user intended to harm infrastructure. The second part is direct user feedback. When a user clicks that they don't want to receive this email anymore, that is fed into the spam filter. The third piece is aggregate user feedback. Those are the three components to health spam filters are currently operating. That's a very high level. Are all processes automated? There automated in the sense that no individual at Google is making any particular decisions about what to do with any particular email. Obviously, the individual user reflecting their choice is an individual user doing that. Not automated in the sense that I think you mean. With regard to the end-user, and the user decides the email spam, is it used going forward in an algorithm for the users? For example, if I were to check an email as spam efforts go to the filter, does that get added to an automated process for in the future for the users, as is sadistic that it may potentially be fan spam? Not in that instance. But areas of you and broader categories, is considered. Very familiar with the study that much of this year, from North Carolina State University, regarding how spam filter algorithm works? I'm familiar with the study. In that study, one of the conclusions was there was no consistent way for actions to recommend to an end-user to help them reduce what was seen as a place to study in the way the algorithms treats political emails. Do you agree with that? I just missed the import. The study said there was no bias in the way -- no way to recommend to an end-user to reduce bias found in the algorithms currently treated politically. I don't think the study is relevant to the question for us today. And offered the study , the studies the mixed-use. And misstated. The conclusions are not correct. I think that's in the study itself, it states there is no reason to believe that the filter operates in a biased manner. Whether there is or isn't a bias in the particular algorithms , or the end-user, if the algorithm is in fact bias , will it be an in-kind contribution to a candidate currently there was a bias present in the current system? I don't believe so. Current bias in the season and the way it operates. I don't believe that's the question for us. There is no, everything Google does in the products is done on a nonpartisan basis. Non-attended to be specific to any candidate or party or speaker. Was the purpose of asking about a bias? The purpose is really the Google is constantly reiterating and looking at ways to improve all the products, including Gmail. It's looking to do this to enhance the user experience. And to consider whether these kids would . >> If Google was to change the algorithm hard with a B anyway for anybody to know this other than Google? There is public information the public puts out about how the spam filters operates. Especially for vendors. There are many tools available. There's a lot of information about how the filters. Libby changes to the terms of service? Or the guidelines for master tools ? If we approve this opinion, this would put control in the hands of the end-user. Is that correct? That's correct. It would put -- there is currently control for the end-user. It'll give the end-user more ways to again, harder for end people in Google takes a risk by putting the program in place. If the end-user has control, they have the ability to go to another platform they don't like this program? That's part of what we tried to find out as a pilot program. It's designed to test changes and modifications. Whether that's something users like that or not, it's something we can't know for testing. That was eyelids. Thank you counsel, and as chairman. >> I have a couple questions regarding fax inside of this request. On page nine of the request, state participants could be information about messages that she notices and boxes with the spam folder. Who can be information about their own messages? Will there be abilities to the data about other messages? The individual user won't be able to see their own data. They will only be able to see their own data. That's consistent with how it up right now. >> You say also the request -- why the need to reach out to the political party committee as opposed to making it publicly available on the platform? It's not an alternative. It's part of it. I believe that's in the request. It'll be made available on Google's website through social media channels. And very publicly stated in addition, the movie additional outreach. Whether it's intended to be approved. Party committees because the coast candidates. I have this question that the request is to provide services to authorize committees, political parties and leadership PACs. Was the justification for not extending it to non-connected committees? The primary reason for the participants selected is the ability to assist authenticating them. It's easier to do thanks to the reports. In addition, there is further narrowing , to ensure the pallets can be ministered properly. Is the balance wanting to have data available for mental view for how the modifications work. To make sure is operable. This group of participants is not really small . There were categories like think tanks and democracy nonprofits. It's beneficial to have an objective test that is easy to identify without subjective judgments falling in and out of those ability. I'll have more questions. The two . >> Hello? Yes. Just one quick question. On page eight, talks about qualification requirements. And that's, the requester must meet certain benchmarks and follow best practices. Failure to do so results in a participant being removed from the pilot. Will there be any other repercussions for a requester? If they did do something that is not the best part is, and they get removed from the pilot program, with their , but they have additional issues using the service? The plan, if approved, would be to publicize what the policies are. Including what the standards are and expectations of any to be met. What consequences are. I don't believe there's current intention to affect the sender's ability to send other types of mail. But I think the idea with ensuring there is some measure that of people are missing program, that Google has a way to enforce the policies for it'll force policies for the program >> will send email to the normal course . Yes. Both jobs, draft ANB, as the discussion -- when distinctions I think the dress I tried to do , at least elevated, and the Microsoft -- [ Indiscernible - muffled ] we are here seeking the view on the legality of this particular program. >> Thank you. I don't think I got the details are looking for. In Microsoft, they were able to explain their unpacking in 2016, [ Indiscernible - muffled ] what is your justification of using clinical instances for the pilot program? If the volume of expected in a short amount of time during the campaign season. It's beneficial to use the limited groups of users with a will be a lot of email sent . It'll be anticipated that at salons. That makes program is used to administrate and upright to make sure it's operating appropriately. >> In the Microsoft A.L., there are significant reasons on how to justify. Do think there are on the same grounds? There's a history that goes different ways. For different purposes. The fundamental test is in the statute. Whether the thing that is being offered and think has been kind is for the purpose of --. And, whether there is language singing needs to be offered. Whether that is behind level of interest, the needs to be a grounding principle statue and the purpose. The statements in the opinion could also be read as a proxy for what is the purpose of what were doing. >> You just stated the purpose of the pilot program for commercial purposes , and the draft, there's a suggestion in the 44 that the purpose of the program and publicly available information suggests it's actually being done in response to criticism for members of one political party. I'm wondering if you have any response to that suggestion . >> Google receives feedback every day from users, from all types of centers. It's regularly looking to enhance the products based on the feedback. There have been more press about a set of feedback from one group. This pilot program is really for the commercial purpose, and part of that process and product enhancement. For this. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. He said product enhancement. You take into consideration numerous comments received from the user of the email is reflection on whether they consider it to be a product enhancement? Absolutely. The many comments received are very well received. That's important for the process. What the comments reflect that people dislike spam, which Google knows well. The filters block 10 million spam emails every minute. Until we actually get the program, we will know exactly what users like we don't like. That's the idea behind trying. >> Right now, we have a pilot program. You do think that the request, there's the possibility or intention to expand. If the expansion going outside of political activity organization? It's unknown before testing how it might be expanded. It might be stopped earlier on or modified. One areas where Google considers expanding its would be to nonpolitical speakers. None campaign in the total speakers. Like government agencies. Getting up messages. Particular nonprofits. Two centers sending class-action notices they need to get to individuals. There is a variety of areas where Google considers if this works well. Where could be expanded to non-clinical political figures. By putting the pilot program in place Google makes a decision to make sure they are completely unbiased with regards to the emails ? Google made it known long ago to operate in a completely unbiased manner. If they would put in place algorithms that blocks particular political emails, and may have the effect of influencing decisions made by voters given that people don't frequently open the spam folders to look at it? It's impossible to say to what extent one email when an email may have on the planning process. There are academics transfer this out. What the actual impact might be is impossible to gauge. Thank you. >> Going along with the questions asked before, is it a possible consideration this will only be a program available for political activity? At the moment, yes. The plan is the pilot itself would be limited to eligible participants is as described in the request. To my question is after. Is part of the consideration will this be a products only offered political entities? I did not catch this the first time. All options are on the table. The idea is to test and figure out whether this works and whether it's the right set of other wishful participants. Whether it can be used for nonpolitical speakers and work well in with these experiences. >> I think your point about going back to the statue, the question here is whether it's been done for the purpose of imposing a federal election. That's the baseline legal question. Were discussing whether it's for commercial purposes or not. We have no way of knowing. In that vein, it's a pilot program, the questions, a pilot program for what? Is it a program for how Google handles -- again, the question is about right now. What else can happen in the future or hypothetical as what can happen. Is this pilot program for political emails? Or for spam approach in general? I don't know if you can separate this. This program for the spam approach generally. It's for users. It's a pilot program for how people use Gmail, both in the receiving and sending. I don't want to put words in your mouth. My understanding from you and the question was this the pilot program directed towards Google's overall approach to spam. The decision to use political committees has the first data and was done not because of the political committees. But as political committees, they have characteristics. Once regulated, is in emails around a certain calendar. We add anything to her position? That's exactly right. It's not on the same scale. That really is the idea. It's based on how they use the product and making it easier and away efficient to test these modifications. Okay, thank you. >> Thank you. For being here virtually, it's pleasure to see. Is it accurate to say the current spam filter for political emails, like any other email, Beth , that's been sent to Gmail? For absolutely yes. >> I'm sorry, you're a little bit fuzzy. Can you repeat that? A pleasure to see you as well. And yes, absolutely. It's currently applied exactly the same to political speakers and everybody is sending emails. As both senders. Under the pilot program, Google starts treating political emails differently than it treats every other email. Is that right? >> Emails sent by also participants, yes. All participants and in the proposed pilot program are political commitments. Correct. It's a good idea. We have seen problems with spam packs. That's less often been with committees directly controlled by candidates. And party committees. That was a smart choice. However, having said that, it's the program that's offered exclusively to political committees. It's something that I bet an awful lot of people who send emails would like to be able to avoid the filters. In the guaranteed entrance of everybody's mailbox. I get tons of political emails and charitable emails as well. In random sores and folks were trying to sell me things. Somebody in a fit of and viciousness signed the up for a political email. That are not the ones -- I don't sign up for political emails. But I certainly don't sign up for these. I'm sympathetic to all commenters who wrote in and said, please don't send us any spam. When I look at this, and I should say a mail theft, I should apologize to you, and my colleague. And anybody else who wanted comments . I am largely responsible for the draft that jobs at the end of the day yesterday. I wasn't planning on doing this at the last minute. The more I looked, the more comfortable I became with it. Seems to me that this is fairly new circumstance. Unique. Anytime I see situational somebody says, we have a program that does very valuable to all sorts of folks, we wanted to be free to political committees. That raises on bills because it felt like the classic definition of and in-kind contribution. One a look at the old ales that are cited in the request and drafts, it seems to me they fall into two buckets. I remember what it's talking about at the time. There are a whole bunch of vendors requests. People who sell various products and services. And have a variety of REIT systems. That's what everybody pays. There are a lot of different services with a variety. The commission looks at these rates over the years. And how they wanted to structure the rates for political committees. And with them for commercial purposes within the constructs they used all of their customers. Sometimes committees got charged more, sometimes less. Sometimes, it just sort of depended on volume and other factors. There is all of those. There are a few that fall into another buckets. Microsoft AO, and area with security. A small number that considers that the security issues. Was concerned about the risk of foreign intervention. In our election. It was motivated to find a way to allow public spirited citizens who had expertise and wanted to help political committees protect themselves. We were motivated to try to find a way to help them and allow those programs because of the need to protect the election system from foreign influence. It was pretty clear in those offenses they did not intend to influence the outcome of the election. For folks who were offering services. Even in those circumstances, all of those requesters included a large group of people. Nonprofits, think tanks, in the words of Microsoft AO, election sensitive organizations. As part of the group. They did that on purpose because they were concerned if they came to the efficacy and said it was off for political committees, we would have a big problem because that sounds like an unkind contribution. It was not a corporation. It seems to me that this pilot program doesn't fall into either of those pockets. You're not facing the kind of extraordinary threat that the Microsoft and Ailes were seeking to address. You're not a vendor offering different rates to different customers based on a variety of commercial factors. What you have is a program that , as I said, many folks would like to take advantage. Many entities would love to take a good part of this. Google may offer this to some other groups in the future, the request is quite up front about the fact they may not. They might shut down the whole thing if it doesn't work out. If they started. And there was more of an outcry than there has been a response to the request and the FEC. A record-setting number of comments on the request. I think it was almost unanimously against the request. We might've had one , maybe two comments that thought was good idea? It looks cool, to decide. It's offered to political committees. Draft a glosses over this a little bit by suggesting he might offer this later to some of the groups. As the chairman mentioned. It's really hypothetical. But it's not where we are today. It's not part of the request here today. That is more of an explanation. What motivated draft the. And where my inclination lies. I welcome your comments . Thank you, Commissioner. I completely understand the history of the ales. In the language. You also hit on this in your comments. In those cases, the thing being offered was not intended to influence the outcome of the election. There are different ways they got there. Similarly, in this case, this is offered on a nonpartisan basis intended to influence the election by any means. It's the fundamental task. As he notes, there are good reasons for focusing on certain categories of packs making sure that the email is coming from who it claims to come from. This is additional ways to verify that are currently used. Fundamentally, it comes back to the question of what is the ultimate purpose? Here, it's not all 12. It's not the world. That's what we had today before the commission seeking an opinion. >> I will say I'm going to support draft a. I don't want to, for the same reasons all commenters don't want to. I think a lot and the law and commission regulations can witness. I don't want to hamstring innovation and pilot programs. If Google moves forward, I hope it will reduce and not expand spam. It'll increase best practices for both senders. I'm going to be voting for draft a. Any motions? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With respect to this advisory opinion , I move approval of agenda documents No. 22-37-A Draft A. Subject to the technical and conforming edits to the footnote on page five, lines 15 to 16, as set out in the requesters. >> Thank you Mr. Chairman. I wanted my colleague is willing to withdraw for a few moments so I can move draft be. Which I'm sure will to succeed. I want the opportunity to vote for it. I'm happy to do that. So I would withdraw the motion I just made. Thank you Mr. Chairman. With respect to this advisory opinion, I move approval to agenda documents No. 22-37-B. Draft be. All in favor? Or post? All opposed? Or post, --. Further motions? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With respect to this advisory opinion , I move approval of the documents No. 22-37-A Draft A. Subject to the technical and conforming edits to the footnote on page five, lines 15 to 16 as set out on the requesters to to request submission. All in favor? All opposed? No. The motion casts in favor. My thanks to the Council , and to Google. A lot of hard work was put in. The next met on the agenda. Draft advisory and 222 e- 18. Have an appearance by -- , there you are. He popped up on the screen. Good morning. To thank you Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Christmas. >> Is a response to the request submitted by which it or Congress. [ Indiscernible - muffled ] >> Candidates in the primary election are entitled to contribution limits separate from the June primary election. We ask whether we receive general contributions to the August 2010 primary. Even if it's received more than 60 days after receipt of the contribution. The tractor concludes we may receive this as proposed. I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions for us? Thank you. I have a comment. I want to make notes of the fact that this is an expedited request that the commission received 16 days ago. Also express my thanks to the policy division, in particular, but the speed with which you all were able to get this draft answered out of the requesters for us to consider for a very timely information when election sensitive question. I'm sure the requesters appreciate this as well. We've only made one potential draft answer public. I believe that gives you the answer you're seeking for. I'm interested in any comments or anything else you think we need to know. You just made it yourself. I want to extend the gratitude to be FEC for getting the draft done within the timeframe we requested. We appreciate that. The only thing I noted is the draft correctly states the facts. Currently, it applies the law commission president. >> Thank you Mr. Chairman. And welcome, Commissioner. I want to take a moment . This is one of the first meetings where the cocounsel on this is Jonathan Peterson. Jonathan Peterson was a loyal and trusted and valuable number of the staff. I greatly miss him. I was excited to see him and his name on that request. I was hoping to see them today, so I could say hello, Jonathan. But you must have them working. So good job. That was all. I wanted to say congratulations to you all. >> Having also worked with Jonathan, a second those comments as well. Any further discussions? Any motions? With respect to advisory opinion 2022 e- 18, running for Congress , I move approval of the document No. 22-38-A Draft A. All in favor? The motion is carried unanimously. Thank you counsel. That exhausts the agenda for this morning. Mr. Chairman, no such matters. Thank you very much. Standby. [ Event concluded ]