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U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland,
California, put a scheduled Feb. 5, 2024 trial in the proposed
class action on hold on Thursday, after lawyers for Google and
for consumers said they had reached a preliminary settlement.
The lawsuit had sought at least $5 billion. Settlement terms
were not disclosed, but the lawyers said they have agreed to a
binding term sheet through mediation, and expected to present a
formal settlement for court approval by Feb. 24, 2024.
Neither Google nor lawyers for the plaintiff consumers
immediately responded to requests for comment.
The plaintiffs alleged that Google's analytics, cookies and apps
let the Alphabet unit track their activity even when they set
Google's Chrome browser to "Incognito" mode and other browsers
to "private" browsing mode.
They said his turned Google into an "unaccountable trove of
information" by letting the company learn about their friends,
hobbies, favorite foods, shopping habits, and "potentially
embarrassing things" they seek out online.
In August, Rogers rejected Google's bid to dismiss the lawsuit.
She said it was an open question whether Google had made a
legally binding promise not to collect users' data when they
browsed in private mode. The judge cited Google's privacy policy
and other statements by the company that suggested limits on
what information it might collect.
Filed in 2020, 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 case is Brown et al v Google LLC et al, U.S. District Court,
Northern District of California, No. 20-03664.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Aurora
Ellis)
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