Google has settled a £4billion lawsuit over claims the tech giant secretly tracked the internet use of millions of consumers who thought they were browsing privately.
A trial in the US has been put on hold after lawyers for Google and the internet users reached a preliminary agreement. The terms were not disclosed but lawyers had sought £4billion, including at least £4,000 in damages per user.
The case alleged Google’s analytics, cookies and apps tracked online activity even after users set their browser to ‘incognito’ mode, which is supposed to be private.
Alphabet-owned Google was able to access personal data and ‘potentially embarrassing things’.
In a document filed in a California court, complainants said: ‘Through its pervasive data tracking business, 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 favourite vacation destinations are, what your favourite colour is, and even the most intimate and potentially embarrassing things you browse on the internet – regardless of whether you follow Google’s advice to keep your activities ‘private’.
Settlement: The case alleged Google’s analytics, cookies and apps tracked online activity even after users set their browser to ‘incognito’ mode, which is supposed to be private
‘Google has made itself an unaccountable trove of information so detailed and expansive that George Orwell could never have dreamed it.’
But US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers put the trial, scheduled to begin in February, on hold.
The parties are expected to provide a formal settlement for court approval by February 24. The lawsuit was filed in 2020, covering millions of Google users since June 2016.
Judge Rogers rejected Google’s bid to dismiss the lawsuit in August. She said that it was an open question whether it had made a legally binding promise not to collect users’ data when they browsed in private mode.
Google declined to comment.The settlement comes after it became caught up in several legal battles in the US over alleged anti-competitive practices involving its Android apps.
It has agreed to pay £550m over allegations that it had been stifling competition against the Google Play store.
The terms were not revealed until earlier this month in documents that were filed in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, a federal court jury rebuked Google this year over competition concerns, forcing it to pay £495m in compensation to US consumers.
In a separate legal case, Fortnite maker Epic Games won a competition battle over Google’s Play app store, alleging it was an illegal monopoly.
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