SAN FRANCISCO — Google has agreed to remove billions of records with personal information taken from over 136 million people in the U.S. who used its Chrome web browser.
The significant cleanup is part of a settlement in a lawsuit accusing the search giant of illegal surveillance.
The specifics of the deal came out in a court filing Monday, over three months after the resolution of a June 2020 lawsuit targeting Chrome’s privacy controls.
Among other claims, the lawsuit alleged Google of tracking Chrome users’ internet activity even when they had turned on the “Incognito” setting meant to protect them from being tracked by the company in Mountain View, California.
Google strongly contested the lawsuit until U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers declined a request to dismiss the case last August, setting the stage for a potential trial. The settlement was negotiated over the next four months, culminating in Monday’s disclosure of the terms, which Rogers still needs to approve during a hearing scheduled for July 30 in Oakland, California, federal court.
The settlement demands that Google erase billions of personal records stored in its data centers and provide clearer privacy disclosures about Chrome’s Incognito option when it is used. It also imposes other controls to limit Google’s collection of personal information.
Consumers involved in the class-action lawsuit will not get any damages or payments in the settlement, a point that Google highlighted in a statement about the deal on Monday.
“We are happy to resolve this lawsuit, which we always believed was without merit,” Google said. The company stated that it is only required to “delete old personal technical data that was never associated with an individual and was never used for any kind of personalization.”
In legal documents, the lawyers representing Chrome users described the settlement as a major win for personal privacy in a time of increasing digital surveillance.
The lawyers estimated the settlement to be worth $4.75 billion to $7.8 billion, based mainly on potential ad sales that the personal information collected through Chrome could have generated in the past and future without the new restrictions.
The settlement also does not protect Google from additional lawsuits related to the same issues covered in the class-action case. This means individual consumers can still seek damages against the company by filing their own civil complaints in state courts across the U.S.
Investors do not appear to be overly concerned about the settlement terms affecting the digital ad sales, which account for the majority of the more than $300 billion in annual revenue flowing into Google’s corporate parent, Alphabet Inc. Shares in Alphabet rose 3% to close Monday at $155.49, giving the company a market value of $1.9 trillion.
Austin Chambers, a lawyer who focuses on data privacy problems at the firm Dorsey & Whitney, said the settlement terms in the Chrome case are a “positive development” that could impact how personal information is gathered online in the future.
“This prevents companies from making money from that information, and also requires them to carry out complicated and expensive data deletion efforts,” Chambers said. “In some cases, this could have a significant effect on products built around those datasets.”
Google is still encountering legal challenges on the regulatory front that could have a much larger effect on its business, depending on the outcomes.
After the U.S. Justice Department outlined its accusations that the company is misusing the power of its search engine to hinder competition and innovation during a trial last autumn, a federal judge is set to hear closing arguments in the case May 1 before making a decision expected in the fall.
Google is also facing potential changes to its app store for smartphones powered by its Android software that could reduce its revenue from fees after a federal jury last year determined the company was operating an unlawful monopoly. A hearing investigating possible revisions that Google may have to make to its Play Store is scheduled for late May.
