Have you ever noticed that the content of those ads next to your Gmail inbox are eerily similar to the email you just received?
So has Keith Dunbar.
The Texas resident has filed a class action lawsuit contending that Gmail, Google's vaunted web-based email service, scans users' emails and then uses those messages to decide which ads will be of most interest to the user.
Dunbar's suit, filed in the Eastern District of Texas, says that Google's terms of service, which users are required to accept before setting up a Gmail account, "[do] not contain an acknowledgment of consent by Gmail account holders for Google to use information obtained from non-Gmail account holders' emails," and, in fact, "specifically [forbid] a Gmail account holder from using Gmail to violate the legal rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity) of others."Google uses "scanning technology"
The suit quotes a Google statement titled "More on Gmail and privacy" as admitting that "users will see text ads and links to related pages that are relevant to the content of their messages," and that "Google ... uses [a] scanning technology to deliver targeted text ads and other related information."
The suit contends that this practice, which Google says "is completely automated and involves no humans," is illegal insofar as it extends to messages sent by non-Gmail users. According to the complaint, that practice violates a federal law that prohibits an intentional interception of "wire, oral, or electronic communication."
In a statement, a Google spokesperson said the allegations in the suit are old news.
"Gmail -- like most Web mail providers -- uses automatic scanning to fight against spam and viruses," the statement says. "We use similar technology to show advertisements that help keep our services free. This is how Gmail has always worked."
Latest headache for Google
The suit marks
the latest action in a year packed with privacy headaches for Google.
A suit filed earlier this
month
says that Google's toolbar provides the search giant with "the
address of every web page viewed by the user, along with information
that identified the individual user," even when the user thought
the feature had been deactivated.
A suit filed in February said that Buzz, Google's attempt at social networking, violated consumers' privacy by automatically revealing user information to people they rarely, if ever, interacted with. And Google had to fight mightily to finalize a settlement concerning Google Books, after privacy advocates saidsaid the agreement gave Google too much latitude over how to use consumers' private information.
Dunbar's suit requests the greater of $10,000 or $100 every day that the alleged violations continue, along with punitive damages and an injunction prohibiting Gmail from continuing the practice. It is being brought on behalf of everyone in the United States who sent email from a non-Gmail account to a Gmail address "from within two years before the filing of this action up through and including the date of judgment in this case."
