Yahoo! Hit with Class Action Lawsuit for Alleged E-Mail Spying

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Plaintiffs John Kevranian and Tammy Zapata have filed a class action lawsuit against Yahoo! Inc. for allegedly scanning e-mail messages for targeted advertising and invading users’ privacy in violation of California’s Invasion of Privacy Act and the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The Yahoo! e-mail spying class action lawsuit is brought on behalf of a proposed class of all U.S. residents and/or California residents who sent an e-mail to a private individual Yahoo! Mail subscriber.

Plaintiffs allege in the Yahoo! e-mail class action lawsuit that on or around May 2011, the new Yahoo! Mail system became the default interface for all Yahoo users. To announce the change, Yahoo! notified its “Yahoo! Mail Classic” and “Yahoo! Mail” users that the newly released version of Yahoo! Mail may “look for keywords and links to further protect its users from spam, surface photos and in time, serve users with internet-based advertising.”

On or around June 2013, Yahoo! discontinued its support for its Yahoo! Mail Classic interface, informing its users that they were required to switch over to the new Yahoo! Mail interface.

Yahoo! said that new Yahoo! Mail looks for patterns, keywords and files in Mail Messenger, and other communications content. Its automated systems scan and analyze all incoming and outgoing email, IM, and other communications content sent and received from accounts in order to personalize the user’s experience. According to the plaintiffs, this is the same as reading, attempting to read, learning of the content or meaning of recording, and eavesdropping on the communications sent by Yahoo! Mail users.

The class action lawsuit adds that “Yahoo! intentionally intercepts and reviews the content of their electronic communications for financial gain” because scanning “is not necessary to the transmission of email or to the operation of the electronic communication service known as Yahoo! Mail.”

It should be noted that the potential class action lawsuit was filed one week after U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh in San Jose, California, issued an order refusing to dismiss a similar privacy class action lawsuit against Google Inc.

“The court finds that it cannot conclude that any party — Gmail users or non-Gmail users — has consented to Google’s reading of e-mail for the purposes of creating user profiles or providing targeted advertising,” Koh said in the ruling.

In the Google Gmail case, the judge found the scanning would be protected only if it was an instrumental part of the transmission of email, which she said it was not.

The plaintiffs are represented by Ara Jabagchourian and Brian M. Schnarr of Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy LLP.

The Yahoo! Mail Class Action Lawsuit is Kevranian, et al. v. Yahoo Inc., Case No. 5:13-cv-04547, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On Feb. 5, 2015, plaintiffs filed a motion for Class certification in the consolidated Yahoo email scanning class action lawsuit (In re: Yahoo Mail Litigation).

UPDATE 2: On Jan. 7, 2016, plaintiffs asked a judge to grant preliminary approval to a proposed class action settlement that requires Yahoo to make several changes to its website and email servers.