Google settles lawsuit over tracking internet use by destroying data records. Terms filed in California court, valued at $5-7.8 billion. Users can sue individually. Lawsuit involves private browsing users, analytics, cookies, apps, and Incognito mode.
agreed to destroy billions of data records to settle a
lawsuit
claiming it secretly tracked the internet use of people who thought they were browsing privately. Terms of the
settlement
were filed Monday in the Oakland, California federal court, and require approval by US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs valued the accord at more than $5 billion, and as high as $7.8 billion.
Google is paying no damages, but users may sue the company individually for damages. The class action began in 2020, covering millions of Google users who used private browsing since June 1, 2016.
Users alleged that Google’s analytics, cookies and apps let the Alphabet unit improperly track people who set Google’s Chrome browser to “Incognito” mode and other browsers to “private” browsing mode. They said this turned Google into an “unaccountable trove of information” by letting it learn about their friends, favourite foods, hobbies, shopping habits, and the “most intimate and potentially embarrassing things” they hunt for online.
Under the settlement, Google will update disclosures about what it collects in “private” browsing, a process it has already begun. It will also let Incognito users block third-party cookies for five years. “The result is Google will collect less data from private browsing… and will make less money,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote.
A Google spokesman said the firm was pleased to settle the lawsuit, which it always considered meritless. “We are happy to delete old technical data that was never associated with an individual.”