A federal jury has ruled that Alphabet’s Google must pay $425 million for violating users’ privacy by collecting data from millions of accounts, even after users had switched off a tracking feature.
The verdict follows an eight-year legal battle in the federal court in San Francisco. Plaintiffs accused Google of accessing mobile devices to collect, store, and use data, in breach of assurances under its Web & App Activity setting.
The class action lawsuit, filed in 2020, sought more than $31 billion in damages. The jury’s decision marks one of the largest privacy-related rulings against a major tech company in recent years.
Google has not yet commented on whether it will appeal the verdict.