Google to delete search data to settle lawsuit on protection of privacy
Google will destroy billions of data records to settle the lawsuit, which states that the company secretly monitored information about Internet usage by people who thought they were browsing the sites privately, Reuters reports
The terms of the agreement – filed in the federal court of California on April 1st – require the approval of a US district judge.
It is reported that the plaintiffs' lawyers estimated the agreement at more than $5bn, and as high as $7.8bn. Google does not compensate for damages, but users can sue the company individually.
The class action began in 2020, covering millions of Google users who used private browsing since June 1st, 2016.
Users claimed that the company's analytics, cookies and applications allow the Alphabet division to improperly track information about people who set incognito mode in the Google Chrome browser and private browsing mode in other browsers.
