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(Boursier.com) — Google (Alphabet) has settled a $5 billion consumer privacy dispute, Reuters reports. The Californian Internet giant was accused of secretly tracking the use of the Web by millions of people who thought they were browsing privately, the agency adds. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, on Thursday suspended a trial scheduled for Feb. 5 in the proposed class action, after attorneys for Google and consumers said they had reached a preliminary settlement . Reuters adds that this lawsuit sought to obtain $5 billion or more. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The lawyers said they had agreed to a binding term sheet through mediation and planned to present a formal settlement for court approval by Feb. 24. The plaintiffs alleged that Google’s analytics, cookies and apps allowed the Alphabet unit to track their activity even when they set Google’s Chrome browser to ‘Incognito’ mode and other browsers to private mode.
The lawsuits filed in 2020 covered millions of Google users since June 1, 2016 and sought at least $5,000 in damages per user for violations of federal wiretapping laws and California privacy laws, Reuters recalls.
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