Four former and current University of California, Berkeley students have sued Google in federal court in San Jose, California, claiming that the company scanned their academic-affiliated Gmail accounts.

The plaintiffs allege that their Gmail accounts were scooped up, processed, and retained by the company for analytics, advertising, and tracking purposes from November 2010 until March 2014—in direct contrast to what their universities had told them previously. In April 2014, Google announced that it had ended the practice of scanning Google Apps for Education accounts.

The new lawsuit, known as Corley et al v. Google, alleges similar behavior across Gmail users at several universities nationwide, including San Diego State University and Yale University. Potentially, the case could affect tens of millions of students and former students nationwide.

As such, the suit argues, the court should find that Google violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and that each of the potential 30 million plaintiffs is owed “statutory damages of the greater of $10,000 [£7,000] or $100 [£70] for each day on which any violation occurred.”

As their lawyer, Ray Gallo, wrote in the civil complaint filed late last month:

Google has refused to release additional details that would confirm its indirect admission that it has stopped collecting or using student data (or information derived from analysis of student data) for advertising purposes; furthermore, Google has refused to delete previously-collected data and has refused to promise not to use previously-collected data for advertising purposes.

Gallo is also involved in another case pending before US District Judge Lucy Koh, arguing on behalf of non-Gmail users who corresponded with Gmail users. That case, known as Matera v. Google, wants a court to find that Google cannot scan or analyze non-users’ data. A related case dating back to 2013, known as In re Google Inc. Gmail Litigation, is also pending before Judge Koh.

In an e-mail to Ars, Google spokesman Aaron Stein wrote: "We don't have a quote / comment on the case."

UPDATE 12:30pm ET: Gallo e-mailed Ars to clarify that the suit isn't a proposed class action: "Anybody who wants to collect damages needs to sign up at www.emailprivacylit.com."