The giant Google has reached a historic agreement worth $5 billion to end a class action that attacked the company on collection of personal data in private browsing.
Google and the collective attacking it had marked the date in the calendar: a trial was to take place on February 5, 2024. To avoid getting to that point, the Mountain View firm agreed to take out the checkbook. Results of the races: 5 billion dollars will be paid by the American giant, to stop an appeal born from the collection of data from its users, tracked even when they are connected to its search engine in private mode. Let’s go into more detail.
Google reaches $5 billion deal to stop private browsing lawsuit
Since the launch of the class action initiated by the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner in 2020, Google has faced allegations that the company was tracking user activity, even in private browsing, you know, the famous mode incognito, although principle would dictate that this is not the case.
US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, in charge of the case in Oakland, California, not far from Google’s headquarters, therefore decided on Thursday to suspend the trial scheduled for February 5. The giant’s lawyers and those representing the cheated users agreed.
And this agreement is worth 5 billion dollars, which Google could also begin to pay by the end of winter, with the court having to approve a proposed settlement by February 24. But, to understand clearly, what exactly was Google accused of in this case?
The giant has accumulated sanctions in recent months
For the plaintiffs, Google had become “ a wealth of information » thanks to its collection of data from users browsing, via Chrome in particular, in private mode, subject to potentially embarrassing things elsewhere.
In its defense, Google claimed to have been transparent about the collection, even in private browsing. The company argued that collecting search history, through this mode, benefits site owners who use it to evaluate the performance of their content. If the user’s activity is not recorded in the browser or on the device, websites may well use tools like Google Analytics to track the user.
Google has already used its checkbook well this year. A few days ago, the company agreed to pay $700 million to around fifty American states to put an end to the vast litigation highlighting anti-competitive practices carried out on the Play Store, its application store. Earlier this month, the firm lost a lawsuit against Epic Games, the publisher of Fortnite, among other sanctions received this year. This is the game when you are the number one player on the global Internet.
Source : BBC
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