A United States federal jury has ruled that Alphabet’s Google must pay $425 million Dollars in a class action lawsuit after finding the company continued collecting data from users who had disabled the Web & App Activity tracking feature. The case, heard in San Francisco, covered around 98 million users and 174 million devices, with the jury finding Google liable on two of three privacy violation claims but not malicious thus denying any punitive damages.
A Google spokesperson stated the decision “misunderstands how our products work,” asserting that their privacy tools give users control and that personalization settings are honored when turned off. Google plans to appeal the ruling.