Plaintiffs demand 2.36 billion US dollars from Google after privacy ruling

Google was recently ordered to pay almost half a billion US dollars in a class-action lawsuit in the US after several years. The court had found the company guilty of collecting data about users, even though the recording of app activity was explicitly turned off. The plaintiffs had originally demanded more than 30 billion dollars and have now requested a permanent injunction and disgorgement of profits totaling $2.36 billion. Google calls the ruling a misunderstanding and has announced an appeal.

In early September, a California court ruled that Google must pay 425 million dollars for misleading on data protection. The decision is based on the fact that the data company recorded activities on the internet and in apps, even when users had explicitly turned it off. The jurors awarded damages to the plaintiffs because the collected data had value and would have had even more value for those who had deactivated tracking than on average. However, because they had not suffered any damages, the sum did not turn out higher.

Plaintiffs demand data deletion and more damages

This week, the plaintiffs followed up and filed a motion with the court for a permanent injunction and disgorgement of profits. According to court documents, Google is ordered to stop collecting and storing data despite tracking being turned off, to delete the user data collected in this way so far, to delete the corresponding algorithms, models, and services, and to commission an independent third party to monitor and ensure Google's compliance with the preliminary injunction.

In addition, Google is to pay an additional $2.36 billion in damages, practically as a share of the profits generated with this data. This sum is a "conservative estimate" of the profits Google has earned with the data illegitimately collected from around 98 million users and 174 million devices.

The class-action lawsuit was filed in July 2020 and accused Google of misleading about privacy settings. At the time, it was stated that although Google promised users control over their data and specifically offered to stop the recording of web and app activity, data was still collected when this was used. This happens via the Software Development Kit (SDK) Firebase. Apps based on this register every call to an app page and report at least the URL of the page, the referring page (referrer), and the page title to Google servers. Google is forcing the use of Firebase, according to the accusation. Because without it, there would be no access to Google Analytics or Google's ad mediation. Firebase is also mandatory for marketing the app in Google's Play Store.

Google: it's all just a misunderstanding

Google sees itself misunderstood by the plaintiffs, the jury, and the court. Even after the first ruling, company spokesperson Jose Castaneda said: "This decision misunderstands how our products work. Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalization, we respect that decision."

According to Reuters Google describes the collected data as pseudonymous, not personal, and says it is stored securely in encrypted systems. Furthermore, the information is not linked to user identities or Google accounts. Therefore, the data company requested the judge to dismiss the class-action lawsuit this week. Google also bases this on the fact that the claims depend on app usage, user expectations, and other individual factors.

The case is called Anibal Rodriguez, Julian Santiago, Susan Lynn Harvey et al v. Google and is being heard in the US District Court for the Northern District of California under case number 3:20-cv-04688-RS.

(fds)