A Pennsylvania woman has filed a lawsuit against Google accusing the company of illegal wiretapping by intercepting e-mails sent to Gmail accounts, the Associated Press reports. Similar class-action suits have been filed nationwide on behalf of e-mail users without Gmail accounts who therefore did not accept Google’s terms of service. One class-action lawyer said the terms allow for e-mail interception for direct marketing purposes, but Google is “also intercepting e-mails of the non-Gmail account holder, in violation of wiretap laws in some states.” A Google lawyer wrote in a November 9 motion to dismiss a Maryland case that content-based advertising is a “routine business practice permitted under an exception written into the wiretap law,” the report states.
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