A federal judge rejected Google’s claims that wiretapping laws don’t apply to Gmail, in a decision Thursday in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif. (http://bit.ly/14McA9q). Google had asked the court to dismiss both state and federal claims that it illegally reads the content of private email messages sent via Gmail; Judge Lucy Koh agreed to throw out state claims, inviting the plaintiffs to refile, but refused to dismiss the federal claims. Koh said reading emails is not a necessary part of Google’s business operations and that invasion of privacy laws apply to opening and reading online communications without consent. Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project Director John Simpson in a Thursday statement called the decision a “tremendous victory” for online privacy, saying the ruling means wiretap laws apply to the Internet.

The FTC has become the de facto “Federal Technology Commission,” and not always for the best, said Berin Szoka, president of TechFreedom, and Geoffrey Manne, executive director of the International Center for Law and Economics which calls itself a new global think tank, in a Thursday email marking the FTC’s 99th anniversary (http://bit.ly/14M93I9). The FTC’s case-by-case approach since it can’t issue rulemakings is better suited to fast-changing industries than the FCC, they said. “Those traditional regulatory agencies all try to write rules based on what they imagine new technology will look like -- or what they think it should look like.” But Szoka and Manne said the FTC’s structure is “deeply problematic” and lamented that the agency hasn’t developed its own legal standards for antitrust regulation. The FTC’s habit of “strong-arming companies” into settling cases out of court is flexible, but it disposes of any legal constraints or due process, they said. “This kind of extra-legal approach cannot be the way we regulate technology in the next century.” The FTC had no comment.

An effort should be made to define “trollish” behavior for the purposes of patent legislation, said the Institute for Policy Innovation in a Thursday blog post (http://bit.ly/14M7x8N). “These are the people who bring, or threaten to bring, abusive, frivolous litigation that is designed to leach onto innovation and drain its value,” it said. Eliminating so-called trolls will require a focus on the system that enables their behavior, it said. It backed an expansion of the Patent and Trademark Office’s business-method patent review program, currently limited to financial services, to cover all business-method patents, which would “bring relief to those directly involved in shakedown litigation,” it said. It would allow the PTO to “weed out the worst” of the bad patents.

Threatening the cross-border data flows enabled by the Safe Harbor Agreement between the U.S. and the EU won’t solve the problem of government surveillance, BSA/The Software Alliance said in a Thursday blog post (http://bit.ly/14LRqZ0). The post referenced calls from some European officials to suspend and terminate the agreement. But the agreement is “a functioning framework backed by meaningful enforcement, with industry committed to compliance,” BSA said. Limiting commercial data flows would have a “significant negative impact on the ability of US and European companies to deliver services to users on both sides of the Atlantic,” it said. It would not improve protections in place for EU citizens with regard to government access to data, it said.

NTIA awarded $116 million in grants in fiscal year 2013 to 54 states and territories to help them plan for FirstNet, said the agency Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1asgqFd). Grants were awarded to nine additional states and territories last week: Alabama ($2 million), American Samoa ($502,930), Illinois ($4 million), Maine ($1 million), Michigan ($3.3 million), New Hampshire ($879,887), Oklahoma ($1.9 million), Rhode Island ($755,863) and Wisconsin ($2.2 million). States are required to provide a matching contribution of 20 percent, said NTIA.

The FCC’s discontinuance on metallic special access services has some significance for interconnected VoIP service providers, Cristina Firvida, AARP director-financial security and consumer affairs, told us in an email. The Wireline Bureau on Tuesday granted Verizon a discontinuance on its metallic, program audio and telegraph grade services in parts of New Jersey and New York affected by Superstorm Sandy (CD Sept 26 p14). Including interconnected VoIP providers in the discontinuance process is “a step in the right direction” because it suggests providers may be treated as common carriers and be required to provide “appropriate customer protections,” said Firvida. Many New York residents sent public comments from an AARP form letter to the New York Public Service Commission earlier this month to request the regulators force Verizon to reinstall its copper lines (CD Sept 17 p2). “AARP has focused its responses to post-Sandy petitions before the FCC on elevating the real and immediate hardships that consumers have experienced in Fire Island and other areas, and that other consumers may face should they be subject to unconstrained trials in the future,” she said. Verizon’s decision to offer a fiber service in Fire Island is a solution AARP “applaud[s] and hope[s] to see extended to other super storm areas, including New Jersey,” said Firvida.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board will dig into several different dimensions of Section 215 of the Patriot Act and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in a daylong Oct. 4 workshop. It released the agenda this week (http://bit.ly/18svuRT). The workshop will last from 9:15 a.m. until after 4:15 p.m. and have three panels, focusing on the surveillance authorities, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the views of academics and outside experts. Panelists include acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin, National Security Agency General Counsel Rajesh De, Office of the Director of National Intelligence General Counsel Robert Litt and FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann. “This event will be rescheduled if there is a lapse in federal government appropriations that extends through October 4, 2013,” the board said. It’s putting together a report on surveillance activities.

Globalstar reiterated to the FCC that it should approve a rule to allow terrestrial use of the Big low-earth orbit mobile satellite service band. The FCC established the new AWS-4 band to modify Dish Network’s MSS license to include terrestrial authorizations, Globalstar attorney Regina Keeney said in an ex parte filing in docket RM-11685 (http://bit.ly/1bIQyZI). The commission should do the same for the Big LEO band, “by adopting the Big LEO reform NPRM and proposing to modify Globalstar’s MSS license to include terrestrial authority,” she said. Globalstar proposed creating a terrestrial low-power service using a portion of its MSS spectrum and it said previously that it hopes the FCC will make a decision soon (CD Aug 16 p16). The filing recounts phone calls to aides to all three commissioners. The commission has begun circulating a draft NPRM based on Globalstar’s petition, Globalstar said (http://bit.ly/1ewwysH).

Gogo installed its in-flight connectivity service on its 2,000th commercial aircraft, it said. Of the 2,000 aircraft installed with Gogo’s service, more than 300 have been equipped with its Air-To-Ground-4 (ATG-4) service, which “increases peak bandwidth to the aircraft by more than three times Gogo’s original service,” Gogo said in a press release (http://bit.ly/16tkJCQ). The company expects to outfit 500 more Gogo-equipped aircraft with ATG-4 by the end of the year, it said. It also said it will introduce Gogo Ground-To-Orbit, “which combines satellite with Gogo’s ground-based cellular network to produce peak speeds up to 60 Mbps."

ThePlatform is introducing a Virtual TV Framework for cloud-based management of linear TV and video on demand for cable, satellite and IPTV service providers, said the company in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/19Jms26). The Virtual TV Framework will enable enhanced discovery and personalization, targeted advertising, commerce, content protection and multiscreen user interfaces, said thePlatform.