The First Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the decision of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts to dismiss a federal wiretapping indictment against an ISP based on its reviewing the contents of customers' e-mail messages for competitive commercial purposes.
Both the ISP, Interloc Inc (Interloc), and its vice-president, Bradford Councilman, were charged with conspiracy to engage in conduct prohibited by the US Wiretap Act. Interloc's primary business was an online rare and out-of-print book listing service. As part of those services, Interloc provided subscribing book dealers with an e-mail address and acted as the subscribers' ISP. Councilman developed software which saved copies of inbound e-mail messages from
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