San Francisco, [29-12-2023], Google has agreed to a 5 billion Dollar lawsuit Settlement over Incognito mode concerns. The problem was that Google may not have treated users fairly while using the “hidden” mode on their Chrome browser. The group lawsuit, first started in 2019, blamed Google for tricking people. It said they were better protected online when using secret mode but that isn’t true.
The case said that Google’s ad tools still watched and kept track of users’ visits to sites and activities, even with the so-called private browsing in effect. People who thought they were keeping their privacy safe found out that they were not. Instead, others secretly got hold of information about what they did and didn’t expect it. This is why people took legal action against it so that such data could no longer go unchecked.
The agreement made on Thursday waits for the okay of a judge in federal court. However, no specific details were given out. But in the first case, it asked for $5 billion on behalf of people hurt by it. Lawyers who help people in court are expected to give the judge their final deal agreement on February 24.
The messages sent inside of Google during the court case showed that people using private mode were being watched. This was done to count web traffic numbers and make advertising better. The court case said that Google’s actions on purpose tricked people who chose an option named “secret” much like hiding in a costume, breaking their private stuff.
In an important court form, the judge said that Google’s legal team has made a deal to end the big lawsuit where many people might have been hurt. This is like a group claim with many workers included. The lawyers for the people that sued wanted at least $5,000 for each user Google Analytics or Ad Manager services knew about when they were visiting web pages privately. There’s a chance it could cost Google up to $5 billion.
The agreement, approved right after Google asked for a court decision but got denied previously, is anticipated to be fully accepted by Feb 24th in the year 2024. Google and the lawyers for consumers didn’t answer requests they got to talk about it.
This agreement comes after more rules were made to take on big tech companies with questions about data confidentiality. In August, Google gave 23 million dollars to end a case what was about giving access to user search information to other companies. In 2022, Meta which is the parent of Facebook agreed to pay $725 million because it was handling user data wrong. Just like how Google did in 2019. In the US, where there is no full law about personal data management, big legal cases are becoming the main way to handle privacy issues with information.