Google misled users about their privacy and now owes them $425m, says court.
A court has ordered Google to pay $425m in a class action lawsuit after it was found to have misled users about their online privacy.
In July 2020, Google user Anibal Rodriguez filed a lawsuit against the search giant, arguing that it misled users with its “Web & App Activity” setting. The setting was supposed to stop Google collecting data about users’ activities online and in apps.
In reality, Google continued to collect data about how people were using their apps, even after they had switched off data collection in the Web & App Activity setting. Although it said that it was anonymizing that data.
The company collected this information via Firebase, a database that it uses to monitor activities across 1.5 million apps for analytics purposes which operates separately to the Web & App Activity setting. It’s reportedly in 97% of the top thousand Android apps, and 54% of leading iOS apps. Google harvested data from apps including Uber, Venmo, Shazam, the New York Times, Duolingo, and Instagram.
This arrangement created a dual data collection system. It misled 98 million Google users into thinking that their actions were completely private, argued the case, which became a class action suit.
Google’s lawyers protested that users were properly informed about how the company collects information and what it does with it. They pointed out that when confirming their choice, Google displays an “Are You Sure?” prompt that lets them check on what information Google collects, according to Bloomberg Law.
This clearly didn’t resonate with jurors, one of whom said after the verdict that Google needed to be clearer in how it communicated its data handling to its users. They’re generally “skimmers, not readers” he said.
Plaintiffs originally asked for $31bn in damages, but the amount awarded is far less, equating to around $4 per user.
Nevertheless, Google plans to appeal. “This decision misunderstands how our products work,” its spokesperson Jose Castaneda reportedly said. “Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalization, we honor that choice.”
A history of questionable tactics
