US Judge Rejects $2.36bn Penalty Bid Against Google

News Desk

 A US federal judge has declined to impose an additional $2.36 billion penalty on Google over allegations that the company collected app activity data from users who had disabled a key privacy setting.

Chief US District Judge Richard Seeborg on Friday rejected consumers’ request for Google to hand over the alleged profits linked to the data collection and declined to impose restrictions on the company’s advertising-related data practices.

The decision came after a jury last year found Google liable for collecting app activity information from millions of users who had turned off a tracking feature. The jury awarded about $425 million in damages to the plaintiffs, substantially less than the $31 billion they had originally sought.

The jury also issued an advisory finding against requiring Google to disgorge its alleged profits.

In his ruling, Seeborg said the consumers had not established that they were entitled to disgorgement and found their estimate of Google’s profits insufficiently supported.

The judge also rejected a request for a permanent injunction that would have restricted Google’s data collection practices. He said the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate prospective and irreparable harm that would warrant such an order.

At the same time, the court rejected Google’s attempt to decertify the class action, which covers roughly 98 million users and 174 million devices.

The plaintiffs had argued that Google continued to rely on privacy disclosures and data collection practices they considered improper despite the jury verdict. They sought to force the company to surrender what they described as profits derived from the disputed data collection.

Google opposed further penalties, arguing that restrictions on its ability to collect account-related information could severely affect an analytics service used by millions of app developers.

The company has denied wrongdoing and plans to appeal the underlying September ruling.

The latest decision therefore leaves the jury’s $425 million damages award in place while denying the consumers’ attempt to secure billions of dollars more and impose additional restrictions on Google’s data practices.