A U.S. federal jury has ordered Google to pay approximately $425 million in damages after finding that the company illegally collected data from smartphone apps even when users had enabled privacy settings.
The class action lawsuit, filed in July 2020, accused Google of intercepting, tracking, and selling users’ app activity despite their explicit attempts to opt out. Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that “Google’s privacy promises and assurances are blatant lies.”
“This case is about Google’s illegal interception of consumers’ private activity on consumer mobile applications (apps),” the plaintiffs’ legal team stated.
Google, however, rejected the verdict. “This decision misunderstands how our products work, and we will appeal it,” company spokesperson Jose Castaneda said. “Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalisation, we honour that choice.”
The ruling in San Francisco came just a day after Google secured a major antitrust victory in Washington, D.C., where a federal judge dismissed the government’s demand for the tech giant to sell its Chrome browser.
Meanwhile, Google also faces heavy penalties in Europe. On Wednesday, France’s data protection authority (CNIL) fined Google €325 million ($350 million) and fast-fashion giant Shein €150 million ($175 million) over their use of advertising cookies without proper user consent.
The CNIL ruling marked the third major fine against Google in France for cookie violations, following €100 million in 2020 and €150 million in 2021. Google said it would study the decision and maintained that it had complied with previous regulatory demands.
The latest cases underscore the growing global scrutiny of Google’s data practices as it tries to balance the privacy rights of users with its advertising-driven business model.
