A U.S. federal court refused yet again - the second this month- to dismiss the lawsuit accusing Google of federal wiretap violations over its e-mail scan policy.
Judge Koh from the U.S District Court ruled on Thursday that Google may be sued for its e-mail scanning practice fueled by the company's intentions to come up with better targeted ads and subscribers.
Google is the biggest email provider through its GMail service which has over 400 million subscribers. According to Google, the automated scanning does not involve people reading the body of the messages.
“Automated scanning lets us provide Gmail users with security and spam protection, as well as great features like Priority Inbox," a Google spokesperson said in an email to the Wall Street Journal. He also expressed that the company felt disappointed and is considering other options.
The decision was ruled just a few weeks after the appeals court approved the lawsuit to proceed against Google unconsciously taking advantage of the e-mails, passwords and all other unencrypted data and information from wireless providers just so it could come up with a comprehensive world map down to the last street. Google, in turn, appealed to the 9th Circuit U.S Court of Appeal to go over the decision again.
These two lawsuits accuse the web giant of committing a violation of the Federal Wiretap Act, wherein it is prohibited to intercept through oral, wire or electronic communication means.
Google's argument against the email scanning violation that its practice falls under an exemption that is necessary in the normal process of business transactions.
Judge Koh, however, debunked the argument saying that exemptions only apply if and when the interceptions are done as "an instrumental part" in transmitting the email. She said that Google's email content scanning did not apply to this exception and actually intentionally done to profile users and come up with better targeted ads.
