Class-action lawsuit claiming Google tracked UK iPhone users revived
An attempted billion-pound class-action lawsuit against Google, alleging the search giant has been tracking iPhone users, has been revived by the United Kingdom Court of Appeal, which has allowed the case to proceed through the UK courts.
Three judges ruled on Wednesday the lawsuit could proceed under the 1998 Data Protection Act, with Google able to be served legal papers in the United States on the matter. The Court of Appeal reversed a previous decision by the High Court which blocked the lawsuit from moving forward.
Google has the potential option to appeal the Court of Appeal's ruling to the Supreme Court. The Financial Times reports Google has yet to comment on the matter.
The class-action lawsuit was launched by Richard Lloyd, the former Executive Director of consumer watchdog publication Which? and previously a Special Advisor to the Prime Minister. Lloyd had launched the case in 2017 as part of the group Google You Owe Us.
The dispute primarily concerns a claim Google had intentionally worked around security settings in Safari in 2012, one that blocked third-party tracking cookies used for advertising, among other potential purposes. After collecting data on the iPhone user's browsing habits, Google is alleged to have determined the sexuality, race, ethnicity, financial details, and other information about users, before grouping individuals under labels like "football lovers" and offering access to advertisers.
Apple has since improved the technology it employs to ensure the privacy of its users, with its Intelligent Tracking Protection 2.0 in Safari beefing up the browser's handling of cookies, while new ad-click attribution technology is being added to Safari and WebKit to further enhance protections.
In 2018, Google you Owe Us suggested there were as many as 5.4 million people impacted by the event, with each potentially able to receive up to 750 ($920) if the claim was successful, putting the penalty to Google at over 3.3 billion ($4 billion) if it loses badly.
"This is a big decision," said Lloyd following the Court of Appeal's ruling. "It says very clearly to big tech companies and anyone else that they can be held to account in this country."
Three judges ruled on Wednesday the lawsuit could proceed under the 1998 Data Protection Act, with Google able to be served legal papers in the United States on the matter. The Court of Appeal reversed a previous decision by the High Court which blocked the lawsuit from moving forward.
Google has the potential option to appeal the Court of Appeal's ruling to the Supreme Court. The Financial Times reports Google has yet to comment on the matter.
The class-action lawsuit was launched by Richard Lloyd, the former Executive Director of consumer watchdog publication Which? and previously a Special Advisor to the Prime Minister. Lloyd had launched the case in 2017 as part of the group Google You Owe Us.
The dispute primarily concerns a claim Google had intentionally worked around security settings in Safari in 2012, one that blocked third-party tracking cookies used for advertising, among other potential purposes. After collecting data on the iPhone user's browsing habits, Google is alleged to have determined the sexuality, race, ethnicity, financial details, and other information about users, before grouping individuals under labels like "football lovers" and offering access to advertisers.
Apple has since improved the technology it employs to ensure the privacy of its users, with its Intelligent Tracking Protection 2.0 in Safari beefing up the browser's handling of cookies, while new ad-click attribution technology is being added to Safari and WebKit to further enhance protections.
In 2018, Google you Owe Us suggested there were as many as 5.4 million people impacted by the event, with each potentially able to receive up to 750 ($920) if the claim was successful, putting the penalty to Google at over 3.3 billion ($4 billion) if it loses badly.
"This is a big decision," said Lloyd following the Court of Appeal's ruling. "It says very clearly to big tech companies and anyone else that they can be held to account in this country."
Comments
Brilliant !
I don’t believe it!!!
/s
Still it was bad Google to do this a decade ago. Of more interest will be how the group determines harm and the associated damages to an individual. That might be pertinent to any other groups seeking damage awards in similar internet company data breach cases going forward.
In this case there is no data breach nor has personal information been exposed but with it becoming almost a weekly occurrence from some company or another it would seem likely that some consumer group would eventually go after companies that have factually harmed us by failing to protect our intangibles entrusted to them. Recent examples would be Equifax, Words with Friends, Marriott and a plethora of others leading to over 4 billion individual records being exposed in just the first 6 months of this year according to one source.
FWIW Google has been knocked in the head enough to finally understand that even if they aren't doing what gets written on blogs and forums (and sometimes they have) the general idea that they aren't always upfront about what they do and why is pretty much true and has had negative implications.
Over the past couple of years Google begun depersonalizing more of the data that gets fed into advertising algorithms. Federated learning, on-device processing and other privacy forward efforts have led to greater privacy protections for Google accounts. Then the past year or so they added easier ways to opt out from and delete associated user data. Even more recently they've expanded it further to where you can even use a voice request to Google Assistant to delete your data, and maps has a new incognito mode which prevents linking personal histories and location data to a person's Google account.
https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/keeping-privacy-and-security-simple-you/
At 11-13 years old when the wifi and Safari bypass stories were a thing Google was a different animal than they are now at the ripe age of 21. They are less than half Apple's age. Yup, Google is still pretty young and it's taken too long for them to grow up and see the writing on the wall. They are already the cash richest private company on the planet and there are ways to continue making more bankable billions beyond greater use of our data for more accurately targeted ads (which by the way has also helped enrich the companies that advertise with Google but I digress). Time to put more effort into avoiding the use of our data at all for selfish interests.
Yes every company is in business to make money and some folks even here claim morality and profits don't belong in the same conversation. Business is business. I don't agree nor do millions of others. IMO Big Tech is rich enough that they no longer need to be so profit hungry as to avoid doing the right thing. My 2 cents. Soapbox now set to the side.
It's also past time for all the techs to be more upfront and transparent. So many eyes are watching their moves inside and out for the next blow-out story, and so many current and former employees and contractors are taking a little cash from newspapers and blogs to help make it happen. Keeping secrets isn't easy anymore and assuming the truth will come out would be the wise move. Get out in front of it before it becomes the next yada-gate.
Google is finally being proactive and that's good for both them and for us.