A United States federal jury has ordered Google to pay about $425 million after finding that the company unlawfully tracked smartphone app activity even when users had switched off personalization settings.
The ruling in San Francisco closes a four-year class action lawsuit accusing the tech giant of surreptitiously harvesting and monetising consumer data in defiance of its own privacy assurances. Lawyers for the plaintiffs accused Google of “illegal interception” and said its public promises amounted to “blatant lies.”
The company, which confirmed the verdict on Wednesday, swiftly vowed to appeal. “This decision misunderstands how our products work,” said spokesperson Jose Castaneda. “Our privacy tools give people control, and when they turn off personalisation, we honour that choice.”
The judgment is a rare legal setback for Google in the United States, where only a day earlier it had secured a major victory: a Washington, DC judge rejected the Justice Department’s demand that the company divest its Chrome browser in an ongoing antitrust battle.
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Privacy remains a fault line for Google’s business model, which depends heavily on advertising revenue powered by targeted data. In Europe, regulators also tightened the screws this week. France’s data protection authority, CNIL, imposed record fines on both Google and the fast-fashion retailer Shein for violating EU consent rules on browser cookies. Google was ordered to pay €325 million ($355m) — its third penalty from CNIL in as many years — while Shein faced a €150 million sanction.
Analysts say the latest jury award in California, though dwarfed by Google’s global revenues, underscores the intensifying legal scrutiny the company faces on both sides of the Atlantic. It also illustrates the growing gap between Silicon Valley’s commercial incentives and mounting public expectations around privacy, consent and corporate accountability.