Google to Appeal $425M Jury Verdict in Privacy Class Action
Google will appeal a court ruling that it violated privacy rights of almost 100 million users who asked the company not to track their data, a company spokesperson said following the jury verdict Wednesday. Meanwhile, the $425 million in damages against Google seem low, a privacy attorney said.
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Case 3:20-cv-04688 began in 2020 with a class-action complaint in the U.S. District Court for Northern California. The plaintiffs alleged that Google invaded users' privacy and violated the law by intercepting, tracking, collecting and selling browsing history and activity data, regardless of the privacy setting consumers chose.
The jury found that the plaintiffs proved invasion of privacy and intrusion upon seclusion, and that Google did not prove that it had user consent as a defense against the charges. Actual damages for part of the class that used Android phones were put at about $247.2 million and roughly $178.5 million for the non-Android class. Jury notes indicated the unanimous verdict was reached early Tuesday morning.
However, the jury didn't find that Google violated California’s Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, nor that the company engaged in the conduct “with malice, oppression, or fraud.”
“This decision misunderstands how our products work, and we will appeal it,” said a Google spokesperson in an email to us. “Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalization, we honor that choice.”
Mindi Giftos, a Husch Blackwell privacy lawyer, remarked that damages assessed were disappointing. “While the verdict shows that Big Tech companies continue to remain under scrutiny for their privacy practices, the $425 million verdict actually seems relatively low given that the class was seeking over $30 billion in damages for eight years of alleged privacy violations impacting over 98 million users and 174 million devices,” she said in an email to Privacy Daily.
Still, the verdict illustrates "the importance of companies providing transparency in their privacy practices and making it easier for users to control their privacy settings,” Giftos added.
Dubin Research & Consulting (DRC), which helped the trial team with strategy, jury research and selection, congratulated the plaintiffs’ counsel in an emailed press release. “This landmark verdict sends a powerful message: privacy matters, and juries will hold even the largest companies accountable when they violate that trust."