- A federal jury in San Francisco fines Google $425 million for privacy.
- The lawsuit alleges that data was collected even with “Web & App Activity” turned off.
- The jury found Google liable on two of three counts and awarded no punitive damages.
- Google plans to appeal, maintaining that the data was pseudonymous and did not identify users.
A federal jury in the United States has ordered Google to pay $425 million for privacy violations related to the collection of data from mobile devices. The decision comes after a trial held in federal court in San Francisco , as part of a class-action lawsuit initiated in 2020.
According to the accusation, the company continued to obtain usage information even when users had disabled the "Web and App Activity" option, something that, in the plaintiffs' opinion, clashed with the privacy guarantees advertised by the company itself.
What the jury decided
The jury concluded that Google was liable on two of the three charges brought by the plaintiffs, but found no malice, and therefore did not award punitive damages . The final amount awarded by the jury was $425 million, even though the class action had sought more than $31.000 billion.
The process has been far-reaching: Federal Judge Richard Seeborg certified the case as a class action lawsuit encompassing some 98 million users and around 174 million devices, illustrating the potential magnitude of data access in the period analyzed.
How data was collected despite the blockade
The lawsuit alleges that even with the "Web and App Activity" setting disabled , certain technical information continued to flow through integrated Google services, particularly Analytics features used by third-party apps like Uber, Venmo, and Instagram. This data flow would allow the company to infer usage and traffic patterns without the user's purportedly revoked authorization.
During the trial, a period of up to eight years was described in which Google allegedly accessed mobile devices to collect, store, and use data from app activity. This aspect was key to the plaintiffs' account, who spoke of "interception" of private activity even after tracking had been limited through account settings.
The case documents state that the tracking would affect nearly 100 million people , a figure consistent with the group's certification. According to the plaintiffs' lawyers, this violated reasonable expectations of privacy generated by Google's own tools and messages.
What the plaintiffs say and Google's response
Representatives of the group claim that Google collected and analyzed app activity data regardless of privacy preferences, which they argue violated several corporate policies and promises. Their argument is that the company should have stopped any usable flow of information when users turned off tracking.
Google denies any wrongdoing and maintains that the verdict “misunderstands how our products work .” The company has announced it will appeal the decision and explains that certain traffic data may continue to circulate for technical reasons even with personalization disabled, but insists that this information is non-personal, pseudonymous, and stored in a segregated and encrypted manner , not linked to specific accounts or identities.
Scope of the ruling and next steps
With the jury's verdict, Google faces a multimillion-dollar compensation payment without, for now, any additional punitive measures being imposed . The intention to appeal opens a new chapter, in which the interpretation of what data is truly identifiable and the extent of user consent when activating or deactivating certain privacy toggles could be re-examined .
The verdict highlights the importance of data management within the mobile ecosystem , as well as the clarity of information provided to users about what happens after certain features are disabled. For the technology sector, the decision serves as a reminder of increasing regulatory scrutiny and the potential impact of unclear configurations in court.
Ultimately, the case underscores that the promise of privacy must correspond to the actual behavior of products and SDKs integrated into thousands of apps. The resolution of the appeal will determine whether this $425 million figure stands or whether the litigation—which has been ongoing since 2020—enters a new phase with potential nuances regarding the handling of aggregated and pseudonymous data.
The jury's decision solidifies an idea that has been circulating for years: privacy is not a minor detail , and interfaces intended to disable tracking must be unambiguous. Between the court's finding of liability and Google's defense, the debate over what data qualifies as personal and how it is processed when a user limits tracking will continue on appeal.
