Google has agreed to settle a lawsuit alleging it secretly tracked the Internet usage of millions of people who thought they were surfing privately.
Lawyers for both sides said Thursday they had reached a tentative settlement, and U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers paused a scheduled Feb. 5 trial in the proposed class action.
The lawsuit sought at least $5 billion, including at least $5,000 in damages per user for those who used private browsing modes between 2016 and 2020.
Settlement terms were not disclosed, but the lawyers said they have agreed to a binding settlement through mediation and are expected to submit a formal settlement for court approval by February 24, 2024.
Neither Google nor attorneys for the consumer plaintiffs immediately responded to requests for comment.
Google has agreed to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the Internet usage of millions of people who thought they were browsing privately
The lawsuit alleged that Google's analytics, cookies and apps allowed the Alphabet subsidiary to track their activities even when they put Google's Chrome browser in “incognito” mode and other browsers in “private” mode. browsing mode.
They said this allowed Google to illegally obtain information about their friends, hobbies, favorite foods, shopping habits and “potentially embarrassing things” they look up online.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs accused Google of having become “an inexplicable trove of information so detailed and extensive that George Orwell could never have dreamed of.”
The complaint states: 'Through its widespread data tracking, Google knows who your friends are, what your hobbies are, what you like to eat, what movies you watch, where and when you like to shop, what your favorite vacation destinations are, what your favorite color is , and even the most intimate and potentially embarrassing things you visit on the Internet, regardless of whether you follow Google's advice to keep your activities “private.”
“Despite the best efforts of consumers, Google has turned itself into an inexplicable wealth of information so detailed and vast that George Orwell could never have imagined.”
The document, filed in federal court in San Jose, California, alleges that Google collects data through Google Analytics, Google Ad Manager and other applications and website plugins, including smartphone apps – regardless of whether users click on Google-supported ads .
This helps Google learn about users' friends, hobbies, favorite foods, shopping habits and even the “most intimate and potentially embarrassing things” they search for online, the complaint said.
“Google must be held accountable for the harm it has caused to its users to ensure that it cannot continue to engage in the surreptitious and unauthorized collection of data from virtually every American with a computer or phone,” the complaint said .
The lawsuit alleged that Google's analytics, cookies and apps allowed the Alphabet subsidiary to track their activities even when they set Google's Chrome browser to “incognito” mode.
In August, Judge Rogers rejected Google's bid to dismiss the lawsuit, which was to be tried in federal court in Oakland, California.
She said it is an open question whether Google has made a legally binding commitment not to collect data from users when they browse in private mode.
The judge cited Google's privacy policy and other statements from the company that suggested limits on the information it could collect.
The lawsuit, filed in 2020, covered “millions” of Google users since June 1, 2016, and sought damages of at least $5,000 per user for violating federal wiretapping and California privacy laws.
The settlement comes a week after Google agreed to pay $700 million and make several other concessions to settle allegations that it stifled competition against its Android app store.
Although Google struck a deal with state attorneys general in September, the terms of the settlement were not disclosed until December 18 in documents filed in San Francisco federal court.
The revelation came a week after a federal court jury reprimanded Google for deploying anti-competitive tactics in the Play Store for Android apps.
The settlement with the states includes $630 million to compensate U.S. consumers who were routed to a payment processing system that attorneys general alleged increased prices for digital transactions in apps downloaded from the Play Store.
That store caters to the Android software that powers most of the world's smartphones.
In a separate case, “Fortnite” maker Epic Games prevailed earlier this month in its high-profile antitrust lawsuit over Google's Play app store after claiming it was operating as an illegal monopoly.
Jurors found Epic on all counts after more than a month of trial in Epic's lawsuit, which accused Google of taking action to destroy competitors and charging unnecessarily high fees of up to 30 percent to app developers.
The court will meet again in January to consider what remedies should be implemented in that case.
