A court has ordered Google to pay $425m in a class action lawsuit after it was found to have misled users about their online privacy.

A court ordered Google to pay $425 million after finding the company misled 98 million users about data collection through its “Web & App Activity” setting[1]. The case revealed Google continued gathering user data via Firebase, a monitoring database embedded in 97% of top Android apps and 54% of leading iOS apps, even after users disabled data collection[1:1].

Google’s internal communications showed the company was “intentionally vague” about its data collection practices because being transparent “could sound alarming to users,” according to district judge Richard Seeborg[1:2].

This ruling adds to Google’s recent privacy settlements, including:

  • $392 million paid to 40 states in 2023 for location tracking violations
  • $40 million to Washington state for similar location tracking issues
  • $1.38 billion to Texas in 2025 over location tracking and incognito mode claims[1:3]

Google plans to appeal the $425 million verdict, with spokesperson Jose Castaneda stating “This decision misunderstands how our products work” and asserting that Google honors user privacy choices[1:4].

  1. Malwarebytes - Google misled users about their privacy and now owes them $425m, says court ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  • cheloxin@lemmy.ml
    2·
    1 day ago

    Personally I’d rather not see corporations get even more personified. We’ve already got a massive fascism problem that has been brewing for 100+ years. If you want to see the move away from fascism then government will need to hold stakeholders accountable for the CEO’s actions. Until then the CEO will continue to be the very well paid fall guy for corporate fuckery while the actual decision makers are untouchable.

    • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
      1·
      22 hours ago

      Even if we start pancaking CEOs, the corporation will just replace them. Either zero out their bank accounts, suspend the liability protect, implement corporate death penalty. But don’t act as if the organization itself isn’t guilty. Even if you decapitate the leadership and seize the shares but the organization keeps ticking, the jobs still go on, the profit is still made, the corporation is still alive. Whatever it did, it still survives. If the shares are seized, the government will be even more reluctant to damage it more than just the job loss !