Google has agreed to destroy billions of records to settle a lawsuit alleging that it secretly tracked the internet usage of people who appeared to be browsing privately in incognito mode on its Chrome browser.
Users claim Google’s analytics, cookies and apps allow Alphabet’s division to improperly track people who set Google’s Chrome browser to “incognito” mode and other browsers to “private” browsing mode.
They say this will allow Google to learn about their friends, favorite foods, hobbies, shopping habits, and “the most intimate and potentially embarrassing things” they search for online, making it “a treasure trove of unexplainable information.”
The terms of the settlement were filed Monday in federal court in Oakland, California, and must be approved by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. The class action lawsuit began in 2020 and targets millions of Google users who used private browsing after June 1, 2016.
Under the settlement, Google will update its disclosures about what it collects during “private” browsing, a process that has already begun. Also, a secret user will be able to block third-party cookies for her five years.
“As a result, Google will collect less data from users’ private browsing sessions, and Google will derive less profit from that data,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs valued the deal at more than $5 billion, with a maximum of $7.8 billion. Users will not receive damages, but may sue individually for damages. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Google supports final approval of the settlement, but disagrees with the plaintiffs’ “legal and factual findings,” according to court documents.
“There are limits to how strongly you can market the Secret Service,” Lorraine Twohill, Google’s chief marketing officer, wrote in a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai in 2019. is not truly private, requires very vague and risk-averse language, and is likely to be more damaging.”
David Boies, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement that the settlement is “an historic step in demanding honesty and accountability from powerful technology companies.”
A tentative settlement was reached in December, and a trial was scheduled for February 5, 2024. Terms were not disclosed at the time. Plaintiffs’ lawyers will now ask Google to pay unspecified legal costs.
The company has faced similar lawsuits before. In 2022, the Texas attorney general sued the company, alleging that “Incognito mode, or ‘private browsing,’ is a web browser feature that indicates to consumers that Google does not track their search history or location information.”.
Source: www.theguardian.com
