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Federal judge says Google must contend with lawsuit on its Gmail scanning practices

Google must now deal with another lawsuit that accuses it of violating federal wiretap law.

A federal judge in California ruled last Thursday that a suit, which accuses the tech giant of illegally scanning the contents of Gmail users' emails, could move forward.  

Despite Google's claims that its practices involved automated scanning of emails – not people combing through users' Gmail accounts to collect data to be used for targeted advertising or other purposes – U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled that users hadn't consented to the purported actions.

Last month, a federal appeals court ruled that a separate case against Google could continue, where it was accused of violating wiretap law through the use of its Street View mapping service, which allegedly collected unencrypted Wi-Fi data of unsuspecting individuals.

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