The plaintiffs claimed Chrome “intentionally and unlawfully” sent Google browsing history, IP addresses, persistent cookie identifiers, and unique browser identifiers without their explicit permission.
Google will have to face a class action lawsuit that accuses it of collecting users’ data through Chrome without their consent. The lawsuit, initially filed in 2020, contends that Google extracted data from Chrome users, irrespective of their consent to Chrome sync. This feature, which stores bookmarks, passwords, and browsing data to the user’s Google account, facilitates seamless access across multiple devices.
In a recent development, a federal appeals court overturned a previous ruling that dismissed the case in December 2022. The court highlighted the necessity for a review of Google’s disclosures to ascertain whether users reasonably believed they were consenting to data collection. The plaintiffs accused Chrome of illicitly transmitting browsing history, IP addresses, and unique identifiers without explicit permission.
The plaintiffs claimed Chrome “intentionally and unlawfully” sent Google browsing history, IP addresses, persistent cookie identifiers, and unique browser identifiers without their explicit permission. At the time, Google argued users consented to this by accepting the company’s privacy policy. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers agreed, stating in her order granting dismissal that “Google adequately disclosed, and plaintiffs consented to, the collection of the at-issue data.”
The ruling adds to the legal defeats that Google has been dealt in the past year. In December, a jury in San Francisco found Google broke competition laws in how it ran its app store for Android devices. Earlier this month, a federal judge said the company’s search engine business was an illegal monopoly.