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Google agreed The company will pay $68 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that its voice-activated assistant violated the privacy of smart device users by secretly recording them.
The preliminary settlement was filed Friday in federal court in San Jose, California, but still needs approval by U.S. District Judge Beth Rabson Freeman.
The tech giant was accused of illegally recording and disseminating private conversations after the Google Assistant tool was activated and sent targeted ads.
Google has agreed to pay $68 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that its voice-activated assistant secretly recorded users of smart devices. (Getty Images/Getty Images)
According to the complaint, Google Assistant, which is supposed to only record when users say phrases like “Hey Google” or “OK ​​Google” or when someone manually presses a button on a device, improperly recorded private conversations when those “hot words” were not used by users of Google smartphones, home speakers, laptops, tablets, Chromecast media players, and even wireless earbuds without their knowledge.
Users claimed they were targeted with ads based on what they said when they were not trying to wake up their smart devices using hotwords.
Google pays $425 million for years of improper spying on smartphone activity
The tech giant was accused of illegally recording and disseminating private conversations after the Google Assistant tool was activated and sent targeted ads. (GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images/Getty Images)
In court documents, Google did not admit any fault, but said it decided to settle to avoid the “uncertainty, risk, expense, inconvenience, and disruption” of lengthy litigation.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers could seek up to a third of the settlement, or about $22.7 million, in legal fees.
Apple is resemble settlement In December 2024, the company will be acquired for $95 million in a dispute with a smartphone user over the virtual assistant “Siri.”
Google did not admit fault, but said it decided to settle to avoid the “uncertainty, risk, expense, inconvenience and disruption” of lengthy litigation. (Teyfan Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images/Getty Images)
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Google has made other settlements as well. Privacy complaints Previous deals include an agreement last spring in which the company agreed to pay $1.4 billion to the state of Texas to settle a lawsuit alleging that the company collected user data without permission.
In September, Google was also ordered to pay $425.7 million for violating user privacy by collecting data on millions of people who had turned off tracking in their Google accounts.
In 2024, the company agreed to destroy billions of data records about users’ private browsing activities to settle a lawsuit that accused it of tracking people it believed were browsing privately, including in “incognito” mode.
Reuters contributed to this report.
