Google to delete 'privacy violation' email after Goldman Sachs error

Goldman Sachs has obtained a court order to make Google delete an email containing a “massive privacy violation” a contractor working for the banking giant sent out by mistake.

The Wall Street giant filed a complaint in a New York on the grounds that the content of the email "would inflict a needless and massive privacy violation" and cause "reputational damage" for the bank.

The email has now been blocked by Google after the bank's request was granted by an American court in New York state.

The bank said no client information was breached and it is currently seeking to have it permanently deleted.

"Google has also told us the email account in question had not been accessed from the time that email was sent and Google blocked it," a Goldman Sachs spokesperson told The Independent.

The bank said the incident occurred on 23 June when a contractor, who was testing a system upgrade, mistook a Goldman corporate email account (@gs.com) and accidentally sent the report to a random Gmail account.

In a statement, Goldman said: "Emergency relief is necessary to avoid the risk of inflicting a needless and massive privacy violation upon Goldman Sachs' clients, and to avoid the risk of unnecessary reputational damage to Goldman Sachs.

"By contrast, Google faces little more than the minor inconvenience of intercepting a single email - an email that was indisputably sent in error."