Google will pay $425 million for illegally collecting user data

Google has been ordered by a U.S. federal court to pay $425 million in compensation for collecting user data from mobile devices and hundreds of thousands of apps, including Instagram and Facebook, despite users disabling tracking features in their account settings.

The lawsuit, originally filed in July 2020, covered around 98 million users and 174 million devices. Plaintiffs claimed that even after switching off the “Web & App Activity” option, Google continued to collect, store, and use personal data. This included browsing histories and in-app actions from services like Uber, Instagram, and Facebook.

The regulator found Google guilty on two of three charges, but clarified that the violations were not considered malicious. Google, however, disagreed with the ruling and announced its intention to appeal.

According to the company, data collection is linked to the functioning of Google Analytics, and the information is allegedly anonymized, meaning it should not allow identification of specific users. Still, experts stress that anonymization does not fully eliminate risks of re-identification.

This ruling comes against the backdrop of broader antitrust pressure on Google. In a separate case, the court rejected the U.S. Department of Justice’s demand that Google sell its Chrome browser. Instead, the company must share part of its search data with competitors and abandon exclusive contracts.

Apple has also criticized Android in the past, calling it a “tool for mass surveillance”. Experts argue that Google’s policy often pushes privacy boundaries to their limits without formally crossing them — a strategy that continues to draw scrutiny from regulators and the public alike.