Intellectual Property Law

Judge Orders Gmail Account Deactivated After Bank Screws Up

By Kim Zetter

A California federal judge has ordered Google to temporarily de-activate a Gmail account after a bank mistakenly sent sensitive data to the account.

U.S. District Judge James Ware also ordered Google to disclose the identity of the Gmail account holder.

The Rocky Mountain Bank of Wyoming sued Google to obtain the account holder’s name after a bank employee erroneously e-mailed an attachment to the account containing sensitive information on 1,325 individual and business bank customers. The attachment contained customer names, addresses, Tax ID and Social Security numbers and loan information.

The employee sent a second e-mail to the recipient instructing the person to delete the e-mail and attachment without opening it. When the employee got no answer, the bank contacted Google to find out if the account was active or not. Google wouldn’t provide any information without a court order so the bank sued Google to get the account holder’s name and contact information.

Google has stated that once it receives a court order to identify an account holder, its policy is to notify the account holder before complying with the order to give the account holder a chance to file an objection.

See also:

• Bank Sends Sensitive E-Mail to Wrong Gmail Address, Sues Google
• ‘Skanks’ Blogger Unmasked by Google Vows to Sue Company

Full post as published by Threat Level on September 25, 2009 (boomark / email).