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.
