Magistrate Judge Thomas J. Rueter of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has ordered Google to produce customer emails stored abroad.

The ruling is in stark contrast to a similar case against Microsoft. In this case, the judge ruled that the emails fall under the Stored Communications Act (SCA) which would allow the two warrants to proceed in that they constituted neither a seizure nor a search of the targets' data in a foreign country.

Since Google regularly transfers data from one storage center to their data center in California, it does not amount to a seizure because “there is no meaningful interference with the account holder's possessory interest in the user data."

“Google admits that the location of the data could change from the time the Government applies for legal process to the time when the process is served upon Google,” the Judge wrote.

The judge held that under the warrants against Google, “the invasions of privacy will occur in the United States; the searches of the electronic data disclosed by Google pursuant to the warrants will occur in the United States when the FBI reviews the copies of the requested data in Pennsylvania.” He described the cases against Google as involving a “permissible domestic application of the SCA, even if other conduct (the electronic transfer of data) occurs abroad.”

Google said it planned to appeal the case. "We will continue to push back on overbroad warrants," it added.

Source: Network World