Do You Use Gmail? If Yes, This Concerns You.
The Gmail case involves Google’s practice of automatically scanning email messages and showing ads based on the contents of the emails.
By Sadho Ram — 03 Oct 2013, 12:48 PM — Updated about 11 years ago
Google has been accused of wiretapping, in 2 separate cases that have been merged into one massive lawsuit
The accusations, made over several years in various lawsuits that have been merged into two separate cases, ask whether Google went too far in collecting user data in Gmail and Street View, its mapping project.
nytimes.comOne lawsuit focuses on targeted ads in Gmail, which the plaintiffs say is a breach of privacy and wiretapping laws—and, as a class action lawsuit, Google could be responsible for fines to half a billion worldwide users.
thedailybeast.comGoogle is on the defensive, struggling to persuade overseers and its users that it protects consumer data, while arguing that the law is stuck in the past and has failed to keep up with new technologies.
nytimes.comTwo federal judges have ruled, over Google’s protests, that both cases can move forward
The two cases against Google were given a go-ahead by federal judges last week. Last Thursday Google failed in an attempt to stop a case against Gmail privacy intrusions and a similar attempt to stop a case against Street View privacy intrusions also failed.
digitaljournal.com“Google uses Gmail as its own secret data-mining machine, which intercepts, warehouses, and uses, without consent, the private thoughts and ideas of millions of unsuspecting Americans who transmit email messages through Gmail,” lawyers for the plaintiffs argued.
Data gathered from Gmail, Google's email program used by half a billion people worldwide, was used to direct ads at users and was a form of illegal wiretapping, the lawyers said.
dnaindia.com
The case revives a short-lived uproar over Gmail ads when Google introduced them in 2004
When Gmail first introduced ads there was a temporary furor, which has all but disappeared other than the case at hand. Street View data collection or “WiSpy” as some have called it has been a much larger, ongoing headache for Google.
The outcome of the Gmail case could have profound implications for email providers, “data mining” and online advertising broadly. Fines could also be substantial for Google given that there are hundreds of millions of Gmail users in the US and abroad.
Judge Lucy H. Koh of Federal District Court denied Google’s motion in a 43-page order that fought the company at almost every turn
Highly respected in Silicon Valley, according to the NYT, Koh has a fearless reputation. “During the Apple-Samsung patent trial, she made headlines for asking an Apple lawyer if he was “smoking crack.” She is expected to be just as tough on Google.
Judge Koh also dismissed Google’s argument that Gmail users consented to the interception and that non-Gmail users who communicated with Gmail users also knew that their messages could be read.
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