FILE - The Google building is seen in New York, Feb. 26, 2024. Google has agreed to purge billions of records containing personal information collected from more than 136 million people in the U.S. surfing the internet through its Chrome web browser as part of settlement in a lawsuit accusing it of illegal surveillance. –
Google vigorously fought the lawsuit until U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected a request to dismiss the case last August, setting up a potential trial. The settlement was negotiated during the next four months, culminating in Monday's disclosure of the terms, which Rogers still must approve during a hearing scheduled for July 30 in Oakland, California, federal court.
“We are pleased to settle this lawsuit, which we always believed was meritless," Google said. The company asserted it is only being required to “delete old personal technical data that was never associated with an individual and was never used for any form of personalization.” The settlement also doesn't shield Google from more lawsuits revolving around the same issues covered in the class-action case. That means individual consumers can still pursue damages against the company by filing their own civil complaints in state courts around the U.S.
“This prevents companies from profiting off of that data, and also requires them to undertake complex and costly data deletion efforts,” Chambers said. “In some cases, this could have a dramatic impact on products built around those datasets.”
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