Google must face a class action privacy lawsuit alleging it collected users’ mobile device data without consent after a federal judge refused to dismiss the case in a ruling Tuesday, SC Media reports.
The case, Rodriguez v. Google LLC, which was first filed in 2020, is now scheduled for a federal jury trial on Aug. 18.
Chief Judge Richard Seeborg of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Fransisco, said in his ruling it was unclear “from the perspective of a reasonable user” that the plaintiffs were consenting to the data that was collected.
The lawsuit centers around Google’s Web App and Activity settings, including a supplemental Web App and Activity subsetting “button” that determines whether Google saves “Chrome history and activity from sites, apps, and devices that use Google services.” The plaintiffs argue that Google violated their privacy by continuing to collect certain data on their mobile devices after they turned off the supplemental App and Activity button.
While Google argued that the data collection limitations of the Web App and Activity option were clear among users, Judge Seeborg pointed out that such sentiment was untrue based on communications among the company's employees.
"Internal Google communications also indicate that Google knew it was being 'intentionally vague' about the technical distinction between data collected within a Google account and that which is collected outside of it because the truth 'could sound alarming to users,'" wrote Judge Seeborg.
