Court Considers the “Persnickety, but Persistent Question” of What Qualifies as “Content” Under the Stored Communications Act
Optiver Australia Pty. Ltd. & Anor. v. Tibra Trading Pty. Ltd. & Ors., No. C 12-80242 EJD (PSG), 2013 WL 256771 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 23, 2013)
In this case, the court granted in part Defendant’s Motion to Quash upon finding that Google’s production of metadata related to communications containing certain search terms and production of subject lines would violate the Stored Communications Act (“SCA”).
Before the court in this case was “the persnickety, but persistent, question of exactly what qualifies as ‘content,’ whose disclosure by service providers is prohibited under the Stored Communications Act.” Specifically, the court considered Defendant’s motion to quash a subpoena served by the plaintiff upon Google, Inc. to obtain discovery for use in a foreign proceeding. The subpoena sought information related to “a number of electronic communications sent or received by certain Gmail accounts allegedly used by employees of Tibra,” including metadata related to messages containing certain search terms and the subject lines of those messages and others which met certain criteria (e.g. sent within a certain time frame, received by certain people).