Google Ordered to Pay $425 Million in Class Action Lawsuit over Invading User Privacy

A federal jury has ruled that Google must pay $425 million for invading users’ privacy by continuing to collect data from millions of users who had turned off a tracking feature in their Google accounts.

CNBC reports that the verdict, delivered by a federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday, comes after a trial over allegations that Google accessed users’ mobile devices to collect, save, and use their data over an eight-year period, violating privacy assurances under its “Web & App Activity” setting. The class action lawsuit, filed in July 2020, claimed that Google continued to collect user data even when the setting was turned off, through its relationships with apps such as Uber, Venmo, and Meta’s Instagram that use certain analytics services from the internet giant.

During the trial, Google argued that the collected data was “nonpersonal, pseudonymous, and stored in segregated, secured, and encrypted locations,” and was not associated with users’ Google accounts or any individual user’s identity. However, the jury found Google liable on two of the three claims of privacy violations brought by the plaintiffs, although they did not find that Google had acted with malice, which would have entitled the plaintiffs to punitive damages.

U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg certified the case as a class action covering approximately 98 million Google users and 174 million devices. The plaintiffs had initially sought more than $31 billion in damages.

Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda stated that the company plans to appeal the decision, saying, “This decision misunderstands how our products work. Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalization, we honor that choice.”

This is not the first time Google has faced legal challenges over privacy concerns. In April 2024, the company agreed to destroy billions of data records of users’ private browsing activities to settle a lawsuit that alleged it tracked people who thought they were browsing privately, including in “Incognito” mode. Earlier this year, Google also paid nearly $1.4 billion in a settlement with Texas over allegations that the company violated the state’s privacy laws.