Google Settles $5 Billion Privacy Lawsuit Over Tracking Users in ‘Incognito Mode

This month we celebrate Data Privacy week January 21^st – 27^th. We make it a month-long celebration by providing helpful tips and information for our family, friends and clients.

Google has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed in June 2020 that alleged the company misled users by tracking their surfing activity – users who thought that their internet use remained private when using the “incognito” or “private” mode on web browsers.

The class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 sought at least $5 billion in damages, settlement terms were not disclosed. The lawsuit covered “millions” of Google users since June 1, 2016, and sought at least $5,000 in damages per user for violations of federal wire-tapping and California privacy laws.

The plaintiffs had alleged that Google violated federal wiretap laws and tracked users’ activity using Google Analytics to collect information when in private mode.

They said this allowed the company to collect an “unaccountable trove of information” about users who assumed they had taken adequate steps to protect their privacy online.

Google subsequently attempted to get the lawsuit dismissed, pointing out the message it displayed when users turned on Chrome’s incognito mode, which informs users that their activity might still be visible to websites you visit, employer or school, or their internet service provider.

It’s worth noting at this point that enabling incognito or private mode in a web browser only gives users the choice to search the internet without their activity being locally saved to the browser.

That said, websites using advertising technologies and analytics APIs can still continue to track users within that incognito session and can further correlate that activity by, for example, matching their IP addresses.

“Google’s motion hinges on the idea that plaintiffs consented to Google collecting their data while they were browsing in private mode,” U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled.

“Because Google never explicitly told users that it does so, the Court cannot find, as a matter of law, that users explicitly consented to the at-issue data collection.”

Bottom line – we still feel that DuckDuckGo is the best private search engine AND you don’t even have to install anything. Just visit: DuckDuckGo.com and do your search.

Thanks to:

ITPro: https://www.itpro.com/software/google/google-settles-dollar5-billion-privacy-lawsuit-ahead-of-cookie-phase-out

TheHackerNews.com: https://thehackernews.com/2024/01/google-settles-5-billion-privacy.html