Google must pay $425 million for invading users' privacy, a federal jury in San Francisco has ruled. The company continued to collect data on millions of people who had turned off tracking in their accounts.
Google must pay $425 million for invading users' privacy, a federal jury in San Francisco has ruled. The company continued to collect data on millions of people who had turned off tracking in their accounts.
The lawsuit alleged that for eight years, Google accessed users' mobile devices to collect, store and use their data, violating privacy guarantees provided in the "App & Web History" settings, Reuters writes .
Users sought damages totaling more than $31 billion. The court found Google guilty on two of the three privacy claims. The jury found that Google did not act with malicious intent, meaning the company was not required to pay punitive damages.
According to Google spokesman Jose Castaneda, the company plans to appeal this decision.
"This decision misrepresents how our products work," Castaneda said. "Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalization, we respect that choice."
David Boyce, a lawyer for the users, said they were "obviously very pleased with the verdict that the jury has reached."
A class action lawsuit filed in July 2020 alleged that Google continued to collect user data even when this setting was turned off, through partnerships with apps like Uber, Venmo, and Meta that use certain Google analytics services.
In court, Google said the data collected was “non-personal, pseudonymous, and stored in isolated, secure, and encrypted locations.” Google argued that this data was not linked to user accounts or the identities of any individual user.
U.S. District Judge Richard Seaborg approved the case as a class action lawsuit covering about 98 million Google users and 174 million devices.
