Google has agreed to settle a $5 billion customer privacy lawsuit

Google, a division of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), has consented to resolve a lawsuit alleging that it surreptitiously monitored the internet activity of millions of users who believed they were browsing in private.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers (NYSE:ROG) in Oakland, California, postponed the proposed class action trial slated for February 5, 2024, following the announcement on behalf of Google and the plaintiffs' attorneys that a preliminary settlement had been reached.

At least $5 billion was requested in the complaint. The contents of the settlement were not made public, but the attorneys stated that they had reached a legally binding term sheet during mediation and anticipated submitting a formal settlement proposal for the court's approval by February 24, 2024.

Requests for comment from Google and the plaintiff consumers' attorneys were not immediately answered.

Although the plaintiffs had their Chrome browser set to “Incognito” mode and other browsers to “private” browsing mode, they claimed that Google's analytics, cookies, and apps allowed the Alphabet entity to track their activities.

The corporation was able to learn about their acquaintances, interests, favourite meals, shopping patterns, and “potentially embarrassing things” they looked up online, they claimed, turning Google into a “unaccountable trove of information”.

Rogers denied Google's request to have the lawsuit dismissed in August.

According to her, there was no concrete evidence that Google had promised in writing not to collect user data when users browsed in private mode. The judge referenced Google's privacy statement as well as additional remarks made by the business suggesting restrictions on the type of data it might gather.

The 2020 lawsuit, which was filed for infringement of federal wiretapping statutes and California privacy laws, requested at least $5,000 in damages per user for “millions” of Google users since June 1, 2016.

U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, Case No. 20-03664; Brown et al. v. Google LLC & al.