Google Won’t Face Group E-Mail Privacy Lawsuit: Judge

Google won a major victory in its fight against claims it illegally scanned private e-mail messages to and from Gmail accounts, defeating a bid to unify lawsuits in a single group case on behalf of hundreds of millions of Internet users.

US District Judge Lucy Koh refused to let the case proceed as a class action, which would have allowed plaintiffs to pool resources and put greater pressure on Google to settle. If individuals pursue their claims against the owner of world’s largest search engine, they’ll need to use their own financial resources to litigate. Judge Koh found that the proposed classes of people in the Google case aren’t “sufficiently cohesive,” according to the ruling.