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As part of a lawsuit settlement, Google said it would delete “billions of data records” it collected when users browsed the web in incognito mode. new details The announcement was made Monday in San Francisco federal court.
Google not only deletes or anonymizes collected private browsing data records; Before December 2023 As part of the settlement, Incognito users will be able to block third-party cookies for the next five years.
The plaintiffs sought $5 billion in damages, but Google paid them nothing in the settlement. The court filing states that users may seek damages individually in U.S. state courts.
According to court documents, Google has begun changing some of its user disclosure agreements to govern how it collects data and what activity appears on websites when users browse in incognito tabs.
David Boies, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, said: statement He said the settlement was “an historic step in demanding honesty and accountability from dominant technology companies.”
Related: If you used Google between 2006 and 2013, the company may owe you money – here’s how to recover it
The class action lawsuit filed in 2020 as Brown v. Google LLCaccused Google of tracking the browsing history and web activity of users who browsed incognito.
Even though Google allowed users to open incognito tabs and turn off data collection, other Google tools may collect browsing data anyway, the lawsuit alleges.
“Google tracks and collects consumers’ browsing history and other web activity data, regardless of what safeguards consumers may take to protect their data privacy,” the 2020 complaint states. It is stated that.
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Google has defended itself against the claims, and Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said Monday that the lawsuit is “without merit.”
“When a user uses Incognito mode, we never associate any data with them,” Castaneda said. bloomberg. “We are happy to delete obsolete technical data that is not associated with an individual or used for any form of personalization.”
Google is also defending itself against an antitrust lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice.