Google Loses Bid To Dismiss Lawsuit Over Street View

(Reuters) - A federal appeals court rejected Google Inc's bid to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of violating a federal wiretap law when collecting data for its Street View program.

Google had been sued by various plaintiffs who sought to hold it accountable under the Wiretap Act for having intercepted data from private Wi-Fi networks to create Street View.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Google's data collection did not fall within an exception to that law, saying Wi-Fi communications were not electronic communications that were "readily accessible to the general public."

Tuesday's decision upheld a June 2011 ruling by U.S. District Judge James Ware in San Francisco.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.