Google just dodged a privacy lawsuit by scanning your emails a tiny bit slower

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Google tentatively agreed to a series of changes in the way it collects data from Gmail, as part of a proposed settlement in Northern California District Court. If the court approves the settlement, Google will eliminate any collection of advertising-specific data before an email is accessible in a user’s inbox.

The result likely won’t be noticeable to users, but it represents a real change to the way Google’s systems work, brought about after a voluntary settlement rather than a legal ruling. The case, called Matera vs. Google, began in September 2015, when plaintiffs alleged the email scanning violated California and federal privacy law, calling it “the twenty-first-century equivalent of AT&T eavesdropping on each of its customers’ phone conversations, or of the postal service taking information from private correspondence.” The suit was specifically brought on behalf of non-Gmail users, who haven’t agreed to have their emails scanned under Google’s Terms of Service.


Google just dodged a privacy lawsuit by scanning your emails a tiny bit slower