A 2020 lawsuit put forth by Google account holders resulted
in filing of a proposed class action settlement on Monday in a California
federal court. The lawsuit accused Google of illegal tracking of users’
activity in Incognito mode. In the filed settlement, Google has therefore declared
that it will destroy all the billions of records of web browsing data of its
users collected from its private browser.
In addition to this, the proposed settlement requires Google to provide greater transparency regarding its data collection processes in Incognito mode and how the company will be putting limits on these processes in the future. Google will also need to de-identify any data that is not entirely deleted. Lastly, Google has also agreed to let users block third-party cookies by default in Incognito mode, so as to prevent tracking on outside websites as they browse privately.
The settlement is valued at $5 billion, and if approved by a
California federal judge, could apply to 136 million Google users. The value of
the proposal was determined based on the value of the user data Google has acquired
and the data that it would be prevented from collecting.
In response to the claims, Google spokesperson José
Castañeda stated that the company is pleased to settle the lawsuit, though it always
believed it was meritless. He further added that Google never associates data
with users when they go into Incognito mode, and is happy to delete old
technical data never associated with a user nor used for any form of
personalization.
