Ever used Google Chrome in incognito mode? You could be entitled to up to $5,000 compensation – here’s how to claim it

Lawyers have issued a public appeal for users to join their class action lawsuit against Google over privacy rights violations through the Chrome browser’s “incognito mode.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs announced on X that any user of the Chrome browser who went “incognito” between 2016 and 2023 “may be entitled to up to $5,000 in damages under California’s statutory damages for privacy violations.”

At the heart of the civil lawsuit is the allegation that Google collected personal information from incognito users without their consent, even after those users chose not to sync their browsers with their Google accounts, such as Gmail.

While the case was brought before the court under California’s Invasion of Privacy Act (because Google’s Terms of Service adopt California law as the applicable law for the company’s operations), all Google Chrome users in the US may be eligible.

Here’s what you need to know to join the class action, and how you and other “incognito mode” users you know can determine whether or not you qualify.

The attorney for one of the plaintiffs, Don Bivens of Arizona, announced on the social media site X that all Chrome users who were “incognito” between 2016 and 2023 “may be entitled to damages of up to $5,000, based on the statutory damages available in California for privacy violations.”

The renewed class action follows a U.S. appeals court ruling last week, Tuesday, August 20, which ruled that Chrome users who allege that Google collected their personal data without consent can sue for damages.

The lawsuit, which initially sought at least $5 billion, has been on hold since late December 2023 after a tentative settlement was reached.

Scottsdale, Arizona attorney Don Bivens, who last week filed the call for new plaintiffs, is one of several companies suing Google over problems with its so-called “privacy-protecting” browser feature, Incognito Mode.

Last April, the law firm behind the original lawsuit filed in 2020, Boies Schiller Flexner, Susman Godfrey, and Morgan & Morgan, sought $217 million in legal fees just for their own work in reaching the aforementioned settlement with Google.

According to Bloomberg LawThese lawyers claimed that they had worked a total of 78,880 hours on the case.

Bivens filed in Arizona his own class action lawsuit on behalf of California resident Katherine Wilson one month later, on May 24, 2024.

“There are no costs associated with membership,” said the login page hosted by Bevins firm.

‘In a contingency fee case, lawyers only receive compensation if your claim is successful, without you having to incur any costs or submit any fees up front.’

Completing the form on Bivens’ site takes just two minutes, the attorney said.

Last week, the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the lower court that previously dismissed the proposed class action should have considered whether reasonable Chrome users actually consented to Google collecting their data when they browsed online.

The 9th Circuit’s new ruling on appeal, a 3-0 decision, came despite Google’s agreement last year to destroy billions of records to settle the original lawsuit.

Neither Google nor its lawyers responded to requests for comment.

The lower court concluded that Google’s general privacy policy on data collection was controlling because the Mountain View, California-based company collected the plaintiffs’ information regardless of which browsers they used.

Above is a 2018 image of flyers being handed out at the start of the 35th Chaos Communication Congress (35c3), a hacker conference held in Leipzig, Germany.

Last December, Google agreed to settle a lawsuit alleging that it had secretly tracked the internet usage of millions of people who thought they were browsing privately via “incognito”

In Tuesday’s ruling, Judge Milan Smith called that focus misplaced.

“Here, Google had a general privacy statement, but promoted Chrome by suggesting that certain information would not be sent to Google unless a user turned on syncing,” Smith wrote. “A reasonable user would not necessarily understand that they were consenting to the data collection in question.”

Google’s Incognito settlement allowed users to sue the company individually for damages. Tens of thousands of users in California alone have since done so in that state’s courts.

Matthew Wessler, another attorney for the plaintiffs, said he was pleased with the ruling and looked forward to a trial.