On January 25, 2023, a man walked through the Google office in New York City.
Leonardo Muñoz | Corbis News | Getty Images
Google Agreed to destroy billions of data records to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the Internet usage of people who thought they were browsing privately.
Terms of the settlement were filed Monday in federal court in Oakland, Calif., and require approval by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers have valued the agreement at more than $5 billion and as high as $7.8 billion. Although users will not be harmed, they can still sue for damages individually.
The class action lawsuit began in 2020 and covers millions of Google users who have used private browsing since June 1, 2016.
Users claim that Google’s analytics, cookies and apps allow Alphabet units to improperly track users who set their Google Chrome browser to “incognito” mode and other browsers to “private” browsing mode.
Under the settlement, Google will update its disclosures about the information it collects during “private” browsing, a process that has already begun. It also allows incognito users to block third-party cookies for five years.
“The result is that Google will collect less data from users’ private browsing sessions and Google will make less money from that data,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to court documents, Google supports final approval of the settlement but disagrees with the plaintiffs’ “law and factual description.”
David Boies, an attorney for the plaintiffs, called the settlement “a historic step toward demanding honesty and accountability from dominant technology companies” in a statement.
A preliminary settlement It was reached in December and a trial was announced to be held on February 5, 2024. Terms were not disclosed at the time. Lawyers for the plaintiffs plan to later ask Google to pay unspecified legal fees.
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