motion to dismiss

A California federal judge found Google "may have breached federal and California wiretapping laws for machine-scanning Gmail messages as part of its business model to create user profiles and provide targeted advertising," Wired reports. This putative class action is still at the early stage; the judge denied most of Google's motion to dismiss with leave for the plaintiffs to file an amended claim on the two claims she did dismiss.

Plaintiffs allege that Google violated both federal and California's wiretapping laws by acquiring the content of Gmail user's e-mails in order to send advertisements relevant to the senders or receipients of those messages, according to the opinion.

The judge did grant the motion to dismiss on the plaintiffs' Pennsylvania law claim regarding those who received emails from Gmail users because "Pennsylvania law protects only the sender of communication from wiretapping, not the recipient of that communication," according to the opinion.

The full opinion:

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2013/09/GoogleGmailOrder09...