Google's privacy breach costs tech giant £4 billion

Google has settled a £4 billion lawsuit over claims the tech giant secretly tracked the internet usage of millions of consumers who thought they were browsing privately.

A trial in the US has been suspended after lawyers for Google and the internet users reached a preliminary agreement. Terms were not disclosed, but lawyers had demanded £4 billion, including at least £4,000 in damages per user.

The case alleged that Google's analytics, cookies and apps tracked online activity even after users set their browsers to “incognito” mode, which is supposed to be private.

Google, owned by Alphabet, could gain access to personal data and “potentially embarrassing things.”

In a document filed in a California court, plaintiffs say: “Through its ubiquitous data tracking, Google knows who your friends are, what your hobbies are, what you like to eat, what movies you watch, where and when you like to shop. , what your favorite vacation spots are, what your favorite color is, and even the most intimate and potentially embarrassing things you look at on the Internet—whether or not you follow Google's advice to keep your activities “private.”

“Google has turned itself into an inexplicable wealth of information so detailed and vast that George Orwell could never have imagined.”

But U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers suspended the trial, which was scheduled to begin in February.

The parties are expected to reach a formal settlement for court approval by February 24. The lawsuit was filed in 2020 and has affected millions of Google users since June 2016.

Judge Rogers rejected Google's bid to dismiss the lawsuit in August. She said it was an open question whether it had made a legally binding commitment not to collect data from users when they browsed in private mode.

Google declined to comment.

The settlement comes after the company became embroiled in several legal battles in the US over alleged anti-competitive practices related to its Android apps.

It has agreed to pay £550 million over allegations it stifled competition against the Google Play Store.

The terms were only revealed earlier this month in documents filed in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, a federal court jury reprimanded Google this year over competition concerns, forcing the company to pay £495 million in compensation to US consumers.

In a separate lawsuit, Fortnite maker Epic Games won a competition for Google's Play app store, claiming it was an illegal monopoly.