This is pure insanity, the emails are also "read" by code that determines whether it is spam, promotional, social, or another type of message. The emails are "read" by code that determines how to render them in the browser. They are "read" by code that writes them into a search index.

Why one of these things constitutes an "intercept" and not the others don't is ridiculous- whether the action is in the "normal order of business". The definition of intercept as the "acquisition of the contents of any wire, electronic, or oral communication" simply can't apply to just one of these things.

By the Plaintiffs' arguments, any system on the internet that forwards an SMTP packet is an unlawful intercept, because it has to acquire the contents to copy them from one channel to another.

All of the decisions on this seem to be based on the scenario where an intercept involves a person listening to a phone call. I would submit, that if it is just code reading the email that was intentionally sent to the system the code is running on, it is not really being intercepted.