Google Will Head to Court Over Alleged Data Harvesting in Chrome

Penka Hristovska
Published on: August 23, 2024 Senior Editor

Google will have to face a lawsuit over allegations that it collected users’ private information through its Chrome browser without their knowledge and consent, a US federal court has ruled.

The bad news for the tech giant comes from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco that struck down a 2022 federal district court ruling that dismissed the lawsuit. As a result, the appeals court has sent the case back to the district court for trial.

At the heart of the case is the allegation that Google collected data from Chrome users even when they didn’t opt into Chrome Sync — a feature that saves information like bookmarks, passwords, and tabs and allows users to access it across multiple devices when signed into Chrome.

The plaintiffs in the case, which first filed the class action lawsuit in 2020, allege that Google collected their browsing history, IP addresses, and identifying cookies without their approval.

Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers ruled in favor of Google, stating that Chrome’s privacy policy clearly described this data collection, and that by continuing to use the browser, users had effectively agreed to the terms of the policy.

“Google adequately disclosed, and plaintiffs consented to, the collection of the at-issue data,” the judge said at the time.

But, the appeals court found that the lower court failed to consider whether “reasonable” users would have understood that their data was being collected by Google’s Chrome browser, even when they opted not to enable the Chrome Sync feature.

“Google had a general privacy disclosure yet promoted Chrome by suggesting that certain information would not be sent to Google unless a user turned on sync,” Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. wrote in the decision.

A spokesperson for Google said the company is “confident the facts of the case are on our side” and that Chrome Sync … has clear privacy controls.”

The spokesperson added that Google’s decision to soon allow access to saved information without enabling Chrome Sync “is not related to the litigation.”