Google may be in breach of federal and California wiretapping laws: Federal judge

A federal judge has found that Google may be in breach of federal and California wiretapping laws with its practice of machine-scanning Gmail messages to create user profiles for targeted advertising.

The decision by US district judge Lucy Koh was rendered in a proposed class-action alleging Google wiretapped Gmail as part of its business model.

The internet search firm sought dismissal of the federal case in California, under a section of the Wiretap Act that authorised email providers to intercept messages if the interception facilitated the message's delivery or was incidental to the functioning of the service in general.

'' The statutory scheme suggests that Congress did not intend to allow electronic communication service providers unlimited leeway to engage in any interception that would benefit their business models, as Google contends. In fact, this statutory provision would be superfluous if the ordinary course of business exception were as broad as Google suggests,'' Judge Koh wrote.

Gmail, including its business service called Google Apps, the world's biggest email service boasts around 450 million users globally.

The decision also came as a blow to Yahoo, whose free email platform with over 300 million users also scanned email to deliver ads, however, Microsoft's  free Outlook webmail offering does not scan messages of its 400 million users.

According to Google the automated scanning of all e-mails that came through its servers was vital to running its e-mail service.

Rejecting the argument, Koh pointed out that Google's privacy policy did not mention that the site collected the content of e-mails, either between Gmail users or between Gmail users and non-Gmail users.

''Google's alleged interceptions are neither instrumental to the provision of email services, nor are they an incidental effect of providing these services,'' Koh wrote in the ruling.

''The Court therefore finds that Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that the interceptions fall outside Google's ordinary course of business.''

Defending its position Google said it was disappointed in the decision and was considering its options.

According to Matt Kallman, Google spokesman, automated scanning let it provide users with security and spam protection, as also great features like Priority Inbox.''

The decision came with company celebrating the 15th anniversary of its search engine and announced that it was planning an overhaul of its search product.

Google said in a blog post that it was making it easier to sync notifications across devices in addition to revamping the look of its mobile search site.