Jeremy Kirk reports that Judge Lucy Koh has allowed a class action lawsuit against Google over its email scanning for advertising to go forward. Her ruling was not particularly surprising to me based on how oral argument had gone. Kirk reports:
Google had filed a motion to dismiss the suit, which alleges that the company intercepted and read email while in transit in order to deliver advertisements and create user profiles and models since 2008. The plaintiffs alleged the company violated federal and state wiretapping laws.
The suit, which is being heard in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, further contends non-Gmail users who sent email to Gmail users were also subject to illegal interception.
In her ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh wrote that Google’s terms of service and privacy policies do not explicitly say that the company intercepts users’ email to create user profiles or deliver targeted advertising.
Read more on Computerworld.