Google ordered to compensate $425m in privacy class action verdict

A federal jury has ruled that Alphabet's Google is required to pay $425m for infringing on user privacy by continuing to gather data from millions of users who had disabled a tracking feature in their Google accounts, reports Reuters.

The decision was reached following a trial in San Francisco.

The court examined claims that the company had accessed users' mobile devices over an eight-year span to collect, store, and utilise their data, thereby breaching privacy commitments associated with its Web & App Activity setting.

The plaintiffs had sought damages exceeding $31bn.

The jury found Google liable for two out of three claims regarding privacy violations but determined that the company did not act with malice, which precluded any punitive damages.

A representative from Google acknowledged the jury's decision, while the company maintained its stance of having committed no wrongdoing.

The class action lawsuit, initiated in July 2020, alleged that Google continued to collect user data even when the tracking setting was disabled, through partnerships with applications such as Uber, Venmo, and Meta's Instagram, which utilise specific Google analytics services.

During the trial, the company asserted that the data collected was "nonpersonal, pseudonymous, and stored in segregated, secured, and encrypted locations," and that it was not linked to individual users' Google accounts or identities.

US District Judge Richard Seeborg certified the lawsuit as a class action, encompassing approximately 98 million Google users and 174 million devices.

Earlier in 2025, the company settled with Texas for nearly $1.4bn over allegations of violating state privacy laws.

Additionally, in April 2024, Google agreed to eliminate billions of records related to users' private browsing activities to resolve a lawsuit claiming it tracked individuals who believed they were browsing in "Incognito" mode.

"Google ordered to compensate $425m in privacy class action verdict" was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand.

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