U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh will not let a case against Google scanning email messages be tried as a class action suit. According to the lawsuit, Google illegally scanned and read the private email messages of Gmail users in order to deliver targeted ads and to build user profiles. A class action would have put greater pressure on Google to settle. Instead, the cases will be tried as individual cases.

The IRS has warned about an email and phone scam taking place in Indiana in which thieves are pretending to be IRS agents. The agents are sending emails and placing phone calls to retirees telling recipients that they are behind on filing for taxes. The scammers request payment through a wire transfer or by credit card.

Security firm Symantec has discovered an email phishing scam going around that appears to come from Google Docs. The email tries to dupe Gmail and Google Drive users into sharing their Gmail username and password. The scam contains the subject line "Documents" and encourages the recipient to view an "important document" on Google Docs by clicking on a link.

The U.S. army is facing embarrassment after a U.S. Army commander sent an email to his staff to see how likely they were to fall for a phishing scam. The email warned that their 401k Thrift Savings Plan retirement account had been breached and asked recipients to reset their passwords. Rather than ignore the fake looking email, the email went viral and was forward to thousands of government employees.

There is a spam email going around that invites recipients to beta test a new version of Grand Theft Auto V for PC. There is not really a new version of the game out and the email is malicious. The email tries to encourage users by offering a free promotional code the game. It also contains an attached .ZIP file, which claims to be from Rockstar Games, but contains malware.

Goucher College accidentally emailed the parents of 60 applicants with news that their children had been admitted to the school. The email explained that the student's "offer of admission was mailed today, but I wanted to let you know the good news now, so that your family can celebrate tonight." The recipients had not gotten in. The error was a result of mixed lists in which wait-listed and rejected applicants had been emails instead of accepted applicants.

New Zealand telecom system Xtra is now requiring all email customers to change their email security settings. Accounts that have yet to be updated by today have been locked out until the user updates. The update comes after the telecom experienced a number of security issues. The new encryption setting will make email more secure specifically on public Wifi connections.

As data breaches and email security have become mainstream headlines, email security firm Proofpoint has been seeing an increase in investment. According to Morningstar data, the company is worth $1.6 billion and has increased its portfolio about 15 percent since last quarter. Interestingly, the company counts a total of 249 funds funds that own the stock, an unusually high number for such a small company that has yet to show a profit.

Google's Gmail and Hangouts chat services went down today for a couple of hours. The widespread outage caused many users to receive a message saying "[User] did not receive your chat" or just didn't work. Google has resolved the issue and chat is now working in Gmail and in Google Hangouts.

Police in the UK are warning about an email scam which claims there is a hit out on the recipient. The spammer sends these threatening emails to individuals and companies reveal the awful news that someone wants to kill them and then offers a way to kill the person after them.The email solicits money to buy protection.