Privacy Class Action Suit Against Google Dismissed

In early 2012, Google created a stir by rolling out a new privacy policy that covers many of its products. It was widely noted at the time – in the media, the blogosphere, and by Google itself– that the new policy permitted Google to combine the data it had collected from users of its various products (e.g., YouTube, search, and Gmail), rather than maintain that data in separate databases associated with each product. Class action lawsuits quickly followed.

Last week, a federal court in California dismissed one of these suits. The plaintiffs in the case, In re Google, Inc. Privacy Policy Litigation, C 12-01382 PSG (N.D. Cal.; Dec. 28, 2012), had alleged that Google's consolidation of its privacy policies violated the federal Wiretap Act as well as a number of California statutes and common law privacy and contract principles.