Google failed to persuade a federal judge to dismiss a privacy class action alleging that it collected personal data from people’s cellphones after they turned off a button to stop the tracking, paving the way for a potential August trial. Chief Judge Richard Seeborg of the Federal Court in San Francisco rejected claims that the search engine company adequately disclosed how its Web & App Activity settings worked and that users agreed to the tracking. Google also claimed that its basic record-keeping “doesn’t hurt anyone.”
Users of Android and non-Android mobile devices accused Google of invading their privacy and breaking a California law prohibiting unauthorized fraudulent computer access by intercepting and saving their personal browsing histories without their permission.
In a 20-page decision issued on Tuesday, Seeborg stated that reasonable users could view Google’s actions as “highly offensive,” because the company collected data despite receiving concerns from several employees and knowing its disclosures were ambiguous. He cited internal communications indicating that Google, an Alphabet subsidiary, was purposefully vague in distinguishing between data collected inside and outside Google accounts because users might find the truth “alarming.”
On the other hand, Seeborg believes the Google employees may have simply been suggesting ways to improve the Mountain View, California-based company’s products and services. “Whether Google or plaintiffs’ interpretation prevails is a triable issue of fact,” he wrote in an email.
Google said in a statement on Wednesday: “Privacy controls have long been built into our service, and the allegations here are a deliberate attempt to mischaracterize how our products work. We will continue to argue in court that these claims are patently false.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The jury trial is scheduled for August 18. The lawsuit started in July 2020.
Last August, the federal appeals court in San Francisco reinstated a lawsuit accusing Google of tracking Chrome browser users who chose not to sync their browsers with their Google accounts. Four months earlier, Google agreed to destroy billions of data records to settle a lawsuit alleging that it tracked people who believed they were browsing privately, including on Chrome browsers set to “Incognito” mode. The plaintiffs’ lawyers estimated that the settlement was worth more than $5 billion. The same firms are representing the plaintiffs in the current case.
