While the plaintiffs asked for $5bn in damages, the settlement includes no payment from Google.
Google said it would delete millions of records of users’ browsing activities as part of a settlement of a class-action lawsuit that alleged it tracked people without their knowledge.
“We are pleased to settle this lawsuit, which we always believed was meritless,” Jose Castaneda, Google spokesperson, said in a statement. “We never associate data with users when they use incognito mode. We are happy to delete old technical data that was never associated with an individual and was never used for any form of personalization.”
The plaintiffs’ lawyers, led by attorney David Boies, called the settlement “groundbreaking” and a “historic step” in requiring big tech companies to be transparent to users about how they collect and use their data. Google’s agreement to retroactively delete user information is a significant concession as it forms the backbone of the company’s lucrative advertising business, which depends on the quality of its search engine.
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