Internet privacy issues seem to be the big thing in the courts these days. Less than two weeks after Facebook reached a $20 million settlement in the long-running “sponsored stories” lawsuit, Google is facing similar charges over an email-scanning bot that goes through user communications, picks out keywords, and uses them to present personalized advertising links. According to a report from Computer World, Google on Friday asked a California-based United States District Court judge to dismiss charges in the case, which alleges that the internet giant violated provisions of both the Federal Wiretap Act and the California Invasion of Privacy Act. The allegations relate to Google’s free email service, Gmail.

Google has seemed inordinately frustrated with the lawsuit leading up to Friday’s initial hearing. The motion the company filed with the court earlier this year displayed a thinly-veiled exasperation toward the plaintiffs and their allegations, which Google believes showcase a fundamental misunderstanding of the way that email providers and internet-based companies operate on a regular basis.

“This case involves plaintiffs’ effort to criminalize ordinary business practices that have been part of Google’s free Gmail service since it was introduced nearly a decade ago,” Google’s lawyers claimed in the motion. “While Plaintiffs go to great lengths to portray Google in a sinister light, the complaint actually confirms that the automated processes at issue are Google’s ordinary business practices implemented as part of providing the free Gmail service to the public. This is fatal to Plaintiffs’ claims.”

Because the email keyword scanning is done by an automated delivery service rather than by the prying eyes of actual Google employees – and because the same automated service also peruses incoming emails for spam, viruses, and other harmful or irritating internet junk – Google contends that its email scanning and advertising practices are fully within the confines of the law. Furthermore, Google clearly lays out the details of the process in the Gmail privacy policy, which tells users that their content is scanned to provide more relevant search results and ads.

From the looks of it, the plaintiffs don’t have much of a case in this particular lawsuit, but entities like Fox News are still lambasting Google for “the right to read your private emails.” The news sources goes as far to imply that Google has implemented email scanning features primarily for advertising purposes, rather than for catching spam.

However, as Dan Olds, an analyst for the Gabriel Consulting Group told Computer World, users don’t have much power or say over how an online company operates when that company is providing a completely free service like Gmail.

“If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product,” Olds remarked, referring to the nature of advertising around free services everywhere.