SAN FRANCISCO: Google has been hit with a $425 million jury verdict after being found liable for secretly collecting user data even when millions had disabled a key privacy feature.
The class-action case, filed in 2020, accused the tech giant of continuing to harvest information tied to its “Web & App Activity” setting for eight years, despite assurances that users could opt out. The lawsuit covered around 98 million people and 174 million devices, with plaintiffs initially seeking more than $31 billion in damages.
Jurors in San Francisco federal court ruled that Google violated two of three privacy claims but stopped short of finding malice, sparing the company from punitive penalties.
The case revealed that Google data pipelines extended into popular apps such as Uber, Venmo, and Instagram, where its analytics services continued feeding user activity back to the company. Google argued the information was “nonpersonal, pseudonymous, and encrypted,” but the jury disagreed.
The verdict adds to a growing list of privacy setbacks for the company. Earlier this year, Google agreed to pay $1.4 billion to settle a lawsuit in Texas over state privacy law breaches. In April 2024, it also agreed to delete billions of Incognito mode records after accusations of covert tracking.
A Google spokesperson acknowledged the ruling but maintained the company had not engaged in wrongdoing.
