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Google Settles Wiretapping Suit, Shifts Scanning of Gmail Messages to Servers

Google and lawyers for a class of Gmail users have reached a settlement in a case concerning the company's interception of private emails. The 2015 lawsuit accused Google of violating the federal Wiretap Act and California law by surreptitiously scanning Gmail messages for advertising revenue. Google has now agreed "to eliminate any processing of email content" for advertising purposes "prior to the point" when a Gmail user can retrieve email, but scanning of Gmail users (and non-Gmail users) on Google's servers will continue. EPIC recently filed an amicus brief in a related case before the Massachusetts Supreme Court, calling attention to Google's "systematic data mining of millions of private email messages" as a clear violation of the state's Wiretap Act. EPIC has also warned of collusive settlements in consumer privacy cases that enrich lawyers and leave business practices essentially unchanged.

December 15, 2016| Share:

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