Google Ordered to Pay $425 Million Over Privacy Breach
A federal jury has ordered Alphabet’s Google to pay $425 million in damages after ruling that the tech giant unlawfully collected user data despite privacy settings being switched off.
The class-action lawsuit, filed in 2020, accused Google of continuing to gather mobile app activity data from millions of users who had disabled the “Web & App Activity” tracking feature. The jury found Google liable on two of three privacy-related claims but stopped short of ruling that the company acted with malice, avoiding additional punitive damages.
The case covered approximately 98 million users and 174 million devices, with plaintiffs originally seeking more than $31 billion in damages.
Google has rejected the jury’s decision, arguing that its privacy controls work as intended.
“This decision misunderstands how our products work. Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalization, we honor that choice,” said Google spokesperson José Castaneda.
Plaintiffs’ lawyer David Boies hailed the outcome as a significant win:
“We are obviously very pleased with the verdict the jury returned.”
The ruling adds to Google’s mounting legal troubles over data practices. In recent years, the company agreed to pay nearly $1.4 billion in Texas over biometric and location tracking claims and settled another lawsuit by agreeing to destroy billions of private browsing records linked to its Incognito mode.
The company has indicated it will likely appeal the latest verdict.
Will this landmark ruling finally push Big Tech companies to rethink how they handle user data or simply become another cost of doing business?
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