Posted on 08/16/2011 1:50:02 PM PDT by Fractal Trader
A Boxford woman has filed a class action law suit claiming Google Inc. violated state privacy laws by scanning email messages between users of the search giant’s Gmail service and users of other providers, like AOL, and using the information to place online advertisements.
The complaint was filed July 29 in Suffolk Superior Court, is intended to be a class action suit. Complainant Debra Marquis is seeking other people who don’t use Gmail accounts, but have dispatched emails to Gmail users, to join the action.
Marquis claimed in the suit that non-Google email users did not authorize the company to have their messages scanned. Through its Gmail service, Google’s technology examines e-mail transmissions of its users to find keywords or content to present advertising that may be of interest to Gmail account holders.
Marquis’s attorney alleged that Google violated her privacy and cited the Massachusetts Wiretapping Act, a law that states it is illegal to record “any wire or oral communication” without the consent of all parties involved.
Because Marquis is an America On-line (AOL) email user, she “did not consent to Google’s intercepting, disclosing or scanning of her emails,’' according to the suit.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
She's probably a straw man in the whole thing, maybe the girlfriend of the wanna-be lawyer.
They might have violated some law but I doubt this is going to stick under the wiretapping statute. After all, any email you send is “recorded” somewhere, unlike phone calls which are simply transmitted. You can’t transmit emails without the data being stored somewhere, which is, in essence, recording the transmission.
Google isn’t exactly what you would term a defendant that engenders great sympathy.
Interesting. The law is (or should be) the law, and if all parties don’t consent, then Google should lose.
I’m sure that in their terms of service they claim a right to be able to do what she alleges. Somewhere in the 60 pages you need to agree to use gmail I betcha.
For sure.
You miss the point. She does not use gmail and has no gmail contract with google. That is the point of her suit. She never agreed to allow them to scan her emails.
YOU ACTUALLY EXPECT ME TO READ AND COMPREHEND A POST BEFORE I COMMENT?
Gimmie a break :)
I’m not talking about “briefly stored”. The case is talking specifically AOL and Gmail, which most people access through the web. The emails there are stored on the company’s servers permanently as a matter of course, until the user deletes them.
Do I think it should be legal for companies to scan emails without permission? Hell no! What I’m saying is, the law that was quoted seems to be outdated and can’t feasably be applied to this case without essentially making all webmail illegal in that state.
Read the fourth amendment, then get back to us.
How would it make webmail illegal?
“How would it make webmail illegal?”
Because the statute says you can’t record without both parties’ consent. If we consider a company storing emails on their servers as recording, then it would be illegal for a company to store your email on their server so that you could access your mail through a web interface (unless they also get permission from every other party on your emails). Goodbye AOL, gmail, yahoo mail, etc.
“And how does this NOT violate constitutional rights of US citizens?”
Two-party consent laws are not the same as the Constitution.
Besides that, the very nature of the internet is not conducive to privacy AT ALL. Comparing it to the phone system is, I think, a big mistake. It would be much more accurate to compare it to the parlor game “telephone”, where you ask the guy next to you to pass a message along for you. Expecting strict privacy standards under such a system is kind of futile.
“That’s just not true.”
Pff, the internet is about as conducive to privacy as the old telephone party lines. If you want privacy, you either have to encrypt your communications, or put your trust in the “honor system”, hoping that nobody in the intervening cyberspace will listen in.
What is it about people who purport to be American, but care less about the Constitution than an aborigine?
When did you stop supporting the Constitution, or did you ever?
“These companies are the fourth amendment violators.”
Huh? That statement is patently ludicrous. Do you not understand that Constitutional Amendments constrain only the GOVERNMENT?
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