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Google has been ordered by a US federal court to pay $425 million (£316.3 million) for privacy breaches, after being found to have collected user data even when tracking features were turned off. The case was brought by users who claimed Google accessed their mobile devices to collect, save, and use data in violation of privacy settings. The claimants originally sought over $31 billion in damages.
"This decision misunderstands how our products work, and we will appeal it. Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalisation, we honour that choice," a Google spokesperson said.
The jury in the case found the internet search giant liable to two of three claims of privacy violations but said the firm had not acted with malice.
'We are, obviously, very pleased with the verdict the jury returned,” said David Boies, an attorney for the users who sued.
The class action lawsuit, covering about 98 million Google users and 174 million devices, was filed in July 2020. The plaintiffs alleged that Google's collection practices extended to hundreds of thousands of smartphone apps, including those for ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft, e-commerce giants Alibaba and Amazon, and Meta's social networks Instagram and Facebook.
Google says that when users turn off Web & App Activity in their account, businesses using Google Analytics may still collect data about their use of sites and apps but that this information does not identify individual users and respects their privacy choices.
Separately this week, shares in Google's parent company Alphabet jumped by more than 9% on Wednesday after a US federal judge ruled that it would not have to sell its Chrome web browser but must share information with competitors.
The remedies decided by District Judge Amit Mehta emerged after a years-long court battle over Google's dominance in online search. The case centred on Google's position as the default search engine on a range of its own products such as Android and Chrome as well as others made by the likes of Apple.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) had demanded that Google sell Chrome - Tuesday's decision means the tech giant can keep it but it will be barred from having exclusive contracts and must share search data with rivals.
