Google must pay $425 million (about 592 billion won) after a jury found that it continued to collect data from millions of users who had turned off the tracking feature in their Google account, violating their privacy.
On the 3rd (local time), a jury from the U.S. Northern District Court of California ruled that Google collected, stored, and used users' information from mobile devices of users who disabled 'web and app activity' in their Google account management, according to a report by Reuters. The plaintiffs sought $31 billion (about 43.16 trillion won) in damages, but the jury concluded that Google did not act maliciously and was not liable for punitive damages.
Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said, 'This decision reflects a misunderstanding of how our products operate,' adding that 'our privacy tools empower users with control over their information, and when users disable personalization features, we respect that choice,' while stating plans to appeal.
In the class action lawsuit filed in 2020, the plaintiffs alleged that Google continued to collect users' data even while users disabled 'web and app activity' through its relationships with apps like Uber and Instagram that utilize Google Analytics.
However, Google countered in court that the collected data is 'non-personal, anonymized, stored in segregated and encrypted repositories,' and that the data is not linked to the user's Google account or individual user's identity.