District Judge Denies Class Certification in Chrome Privacy Case
A district judge on Monday denied class certification in a privacy case that centers on whether Google violated users' privacy rights by allegedly appropriating personal information the company previously said it wouldn't touch.
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Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Google “has met its burden of presenting concrete evidence sufficient to show individualized inquiries as to each user’s subjective understanding of [Google's] data collection practices.” As such, she denied class certification.
"The proposed class contains millions of Chrome users, each of whom was exposed to, and may have explicitly or implicitly consented to, varying disclosures potentially providing notice that their use of Chrome meant their data would be collected,” Rogers said.
Plaintiffs in case 20-05146 in the U.S. District Court for Northern California allege that Google violated its promise not to collect the personal information of Chrome users who choose not to “sync” their browsers with their Google accounts. Previously, Rogers ruled that Google had adequately disclosed and received consent for its data practices (see 2301040025).