Google will have to join a class-action lawsuit that accuses the company of collecting data from Chrome browser users without their consent. The day before, a federal appeals court overturned a trial court’s December 2022 ruling that required it to examine Google’s disclosure policies and determine whether “a reasonable user reading it could have assumed that he or she consented to the data collection.”
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A class action lawsuit filed in 2020 alleges that Google collected data from Chrome users regardless of whether they turned on the synchronization mechanism. This feature allows you to save bookmarks, passwords, open tabs, and other data in your Google Account and makes this information freely available when you sign in to Chrome on other devices. The browser, according to the plaintiffs, “intentionally and unlawfully” sent browsing history, IP addresses, persistent cookie identifiers and unique browser identifiers to Google without users’ express permission. According to Google, they agreed to this by accepting the company’s privacy policy. Trial Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the defendant’s position and dismissed the lawsuit, finding that “Google adequately disclosed [its privacy policy] and plaintiffs consented to the collection of the data at issue.”
Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. ruled yesterday that the trial judge did not consider whether users actually understood the agreement. The case will be sent to a lower court for retrial. “We do not agree with this decision and are confident that the facts of the case are on our side. Chrome Sync helps people use Chrome seamlessly across devices and has clear privacy controls,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda told The Verge. Google will soon stop requiring users to turn on synchronization to access stored information, but, as Mr. Castañeda noted, “this announcement is not related to the legal proceedings.”