Published in News

Google privacy case to go to trial

by on27 September 2013

Judge refuses to throw it out

Search engine Google has failed in its attempt to get a privacy case against it thrown out of court. A federal judge refused to dismiss most of a lawsuit against Google over claims the outfit improperly scanned the content of customers' emails in order to place ads.

US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California ruled that the proposed class action lawsuit against Google can proceed. Google said users had consented to having their email read for the purposes of targeted advertising so they deserved what they got.

Cases brought by nine plaintiffs, some Gmail users, some not, was consolidated before Koh earlier this year. They claim Google violated several laws, including federal anti-wiretapping statutes by systematically crossing the "creepy line" to read private email messages in order to profit.

Koh said that nothing in the policies suggests that Google intercepts email communication in transit between users, and in fact, the policies obscure Google's intent to engage in such interceptions.

Rate this item
(0 votes)

Read more about: