A United States (US) federal jury on Wednesday ordered Google to pay about $425 million for collecting data from smartphone apps even when users had activated privacy settings, the company confirmed.

 

“This case is about Google’s illegal interception of consumers’ private activity on consumer mobile apps,” attorneys for the plaintiffs charged in a class action suit filed in July 2020.

 

The verdict came at the end of a trial in San Francisco, just a day after a federal judge in Washington DC handed Google a victory by rejecting the government’s demand that it sells its Chrome web browser as part of a major antitrust case.

 

“This decision misunderstands how our products work, and we will appeal it,” Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said. “Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalisation, we honour that choice.”

 

In the privacy lawsuit, plaintiffs argued that Google intercepted, tracked, collected, and sold users’ mobile app activity data regardless of the privacy settings they selected. “Google's privacy promises and assurances are blatant lies,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys said in the lawsuit.

 

The case adds to mounting scrutiny of how the tech giant balances its ad-driven business model with user privacy. Google has been working to phase out online tracking cookies and replace them with alternatives that are less intrusive but equally effective for advertisers.

 

Cookies, which are small files saved to browsers, allow websites to monitor user activity and are a cornerstone of digital advertising.

 

On the same day as the US verdict, France’s data protection watchdog National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) hit Google and fast-fashion retailer Shein with record fines for failing to comply with cookie consent rules. CNIL fined Shein €150 million ($175 million) and Google €325 million, accusing both companies of setting advertising cookies without securing users’ free and informed consent.

 

Google said it would review the decision and insisted it had complied with earlier CNIL demands. This is the third fine CNIL has imposed on Google over cookies, following penalties of €100 million in 2020 and €150 million in 2021.