A federal judge in San Francisco has denied Google’s request to dismiss a class action lawsuit alleging illegal collection of personal data from cell phones. The court’s decision now means the case will move forward towards a scheduled trial in August.
The lawsuit, which was filed back in 2020, targets Google for continuing to collect personal information despite users activating a setting that would stop all tracking. The judge, Richard Seeborg, said that users may reasonably perceive Google’s actions as “highly offensive”, citing that the company continued to collect data despite users activating settings to prevent tracking.
The court decision revealed that internal communications within Google suggested that full transparency of their data collection could raise concerns among users. The company reportedly discussed internally that the truth could be “alarming” for users.
Google has commented on the allegations, claiming that the privacy controls have long been built into their services. The company describes the lawsuit as a deliberate attempt to misinterpret how their products work. “We will continue to make our case in court against these patently false claims”, the company said in a statement.
This is far from the first time Google has been in the spotlight over privacy issues. In a previous lawsuit, for example, the company was forced to destroy billions of data records as part of an agreement to track users browsing in incognito mode on the Chrome browser.
The trial against Google is scheduled for August in San Francisco.