Google was convicted in the United States on Wednesday to pay $ 425.7 million to almost 100 million users for violating their private life, according to the decision of a federal court in San Francisco.
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The web giant, who announced that he would appeal, was found guilty of violating private life in accordance with Californian law, because he continued to collect the private data of these users even though they had disabled this option, the jury concluded at the end of a process started in mid -August, writes News.
The case arises from a collective action filed in July 2020.
The applicants, of whom about 98 million were recognized by the court, had disabled the parameter “Activity on the web and applications” and another pursuit sub -meter. Thus, they refused to collect the data from the use of popular web giant services, such as the Chrome, Google Maps or Google News.
“Google promises and guarantees in confidentiality are lies.”the applicants’ lawyers said during the trial.
“This decision ignores how to operate our products and we will call“, Said José Castaneda, Google spokesman, contacted by AFP.
“Our confidentiality tools allow users to control their data, and when they disable personalization, we respect their choice”, he added.
The group claims that the data collected after the tracking parameter disables do not allow the users to identify.
The Alphabet branch has been under pressure for a long time to find a balance between the broadcast of profitable advertisements, which are the basis of its financial success, and the protection of the private life of the users.
The Silicon Valley giant is thus striving to replace cookies, those small files that allow the online activity and a better direction of advertisements, with a less intrusive, but equally effective mechanism.
In France, Google on Wednesday received a record fine of 325 million euros for violations related to cookies and advertising.
This sanction was applied by the French control authority to respect private life (CNIL), who reproaches them to display ads in the emails of French users of Gmail without their consent and for the lack of information on the use of cookies and browsing trackers.
It is the third time, in terms of cookies, when the French authority sanctions “negligence” The group, which was fined in 2020 with 100 million euros, then in 2021 with a new fine of 150 million.
The decision pronounced in San Francisco comes one day after that of a Federal judge in Washington, who won Google, rejecting the US government’s request to force the group to sell his web Chrome browser in an antitrust process.
