Google has agreed to pay $135 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by smartphone users who accused the company of illegally collecting mobile data through the Android operating system. According to Reuters, a preliminary settlement has been submitted to the federal court in San Jose, California, and still requires approval by a judge.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit covers owners of Android devices who used them from November 12, 2017, onward. Plaintiffs claimed that Google continued to transmit and collect cellular data\u2014paid for by users through their mobile carriers\u2014even when Google apps were closed, location services were turned off, and the smartphone screen was locked.<\/p>\n
According to the plaintiffs, the data was used for product development and targeted advertising, which they described as unlawful appropriation of users\u2019 property. Google denied any wrongdoing but nevertheless agreed to the settlement.<\/p>\n
Under the terms of the agreement, Google committed not to transmit data without users\u2019 explicit consent during the initial setup of an Android device, and to make it easier to disable such data transfers through separate toggle switches. Information about data processing must also be clearly outlined in the Google Play terms of service.<\/p>\n
Plaintiffs\u2019 attorney Glenn Summers said the $135 million settlement is the largest payout in the history of such cases. The maximum compensation for an individual class member is capped at $100. Plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers may seek legal fees of up to $39.8 million, or about 29.5% of the settlement amount.<\/p>\n
The trial in the case had been scheduled for August 5, but if the settlement is approved, the proceedings will be terminated. Google has so far declined to comment officially.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":151067,"menu_order":0,"template":"","newscat":[9],"newstag":[],"issues":[],"class_list":["post-151066","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","newscat-novosti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/151066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"newscat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newscat?post=151066"},{"taxonomy":"newstag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newstag?post=151066"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=151066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}