Google Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over Smartphone Privacy

A US federal judge has denied Google’s motion to dismiss a class-action lawsuit that alleges the tech giant illegally accessed the data of both Android and non-Android mobile devices. The ruling, which took place on January 8, 2025, moves the 2020 class action lawsuit one step closer to trial.

The plaintiffs claim Google accessed web browsing history, app activity, and other information on their mobile devices even after they explicitly switched off Google’s Web & App Activity (WAA) controls. According to the original suit filing, Google led them to believe that disabling WAA would stop all of its private data collection.

Back in April 2024, Google filed a motion to dismiss, claiming that users knew that turning WAA controls off would only stop the data from being connected to their Google account, instead of stopping its collection entirely. It also argued that users had no reasonable expectation of privacy over “pseudonymous” data (personal data that isn’t directly identifiable) and that “no court has ever found that such basic record-keeping is harmful to anyone.”

Judge Richard Seeborg of the federal court in San Francisco denied Google’s motion, arguing that “From the perspective of a reasonable user, it is unclear Plaintiffs were consenting to the data collection at issue.”

Seeborg also pointed to internal communications at Google as possible evidence that the company “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,’” though he recognized that employees might have simply been searching for ways to improve the company’s products and services.

“Privacy controls have long been built into our service and the allegations here are a deliberate attempt to mischaracterize the way our products work. We will continue to make our case in court against these patently false claims,” wrote a Google spokesperson in response to the ruling in a statement to media outlets.

The case is now scheduled for a federal jury trial in August of this year. If the trial proceeds as expected, Google’s privacy practices will be subject to increased scrutiny and examination.

This is especially relevant at a time when experts are increasingly raising the alarm over those very practices, such as Google’s management of cookies and its expected return to digital fingerprinting.