A US federal court has ordered Google to pay $425 million for violating privacy by collecting data from millions of users even after they turned off the tracking feature in their Google accounts.
As reported by the BBC, the court found the tech giant guilty of two of three charges of breach of privacy, but noted that the company's actions were not malicious.
It is noted that the class action lawsuit, which was filed in July 2020, covered about 98 million Google users and 174 million devices, and the plaintiffs demanded compensation in the amount of more than $31 billion. The plaintiffs also claimed that Google gained access to their mobile devices to collect, store and use data even after they turned off the tracking feature.
The lawsuit says Google's data collection practices extended to hundreds of thousands of smartphone apps, including apps for Uber and Lyft, online retail giants Alibaba and Amazon, and social media giants Meta — Facebook and Instagram.
"This decision misunderstands how our products work, and we will appeal it. Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalisation, we honour that choice," a Google spokesperson said in an interview with the BBC.
According to plaintiffs' attorney David Boyes, the party he represents is very pleased with the jury's verdict. Google, for its part, argues that when users disable the "Web & App Activity" feature in their account, companies that use Google Analytics can still collect data about the use of sites and apps, but this information does not identify individual users and is consistent with their privacy choices.
Shares of Alphabet, Google's parent company, jumped more than 9% this week after a US federal judge ruled that Google is not required to sell the Chrome browser but must share information with competitors.
As we previously reported, in addition to preserving Chrome and Android, the court also leaves Google free to enter into agreements to set itself as the default search engine in third-party browsers, such as with Apple and Mozilla. Google is paying Apple $26 billion to make Google Search the default search engine in Safari. For Mozilla, which develops Firefox, the deal is critical to its survival, and without it the company would lose a lion's share of its profits.
Read also: Searching with AI — can Google lose a new battle for search?
Google launches AI Mode in Search in 180 countries, including Ukraine
How artificial intelligence is changing the Google services we use every day