Federal Jury Orders Google to Pay $425.7 Million for Privacy Violations

A federal jury has handed down a verdict ordering Google to pay a total of $425.7 million due to the company's improper tracking of users' smartphones for nearly a decade. This decision, reached during a two-week trial in San Francisco, concerns a class-action lawsuit that affects approximately 98 million smartphones in the U.S. from July 1, 2016, to September 23, 2024, resulting in around $4 in damages for each device.

Despite the verdict, Google firmly maintains that it did not mistreat users' privacy and has been tracking their activities incorrectly. The company plans to appeal the ruling, contending that their privacy tools allow users to manage their own data effectively, and asserting that it respects users' choices to disable personalization features.

The legal representatives who initiated the lawsuit argued that Google illegally utilized data gathered from smartphones without users' consent to enhance ad sales tailored to their interests, which significantly increased Google's revenue. They estimated damages could exceed $30 billion, but the jury ultimately settled on a lower amount. Nevertheless, the win is regarded by attorneys like John Yanchunis, from Morgan & Morgan, as a vital step for privacy rights. He expressed hope that this verdict would signal to the tech industry the importance of respecting user privacy and not exploiting information without consent.

This ruling comes shortly after Google successfully evaded an attempt by the U.S. Department of Justice to dismantle the company amid an antitrust case focused on its search engine. A federal judge classified Google's search engine as an illegal monopoly but opted for less severe remedies, such as mandating the company to share some of its search data with competitors.