(San Francisco) Google will destroy data collected from millions of users while they browse online, under the terms of an agreement reached Monday to end lawsuits over the confidentiality of personal information.
The class action filed in 2020 focused on “Incognito” mode on Chrome, Google’s browser, which gives users the impression that they are not being tracked by the online search giant – wrongly, according to the plaintiffs. .
They accuse the world’s number one digital advertising company of misleading them about how Chrome tracked people using this private browsing option.
“Plaintiffs’ efforts elicited key admissions from Google employees, including documents describing Incognito as “a lie in practice,” a “problem of business ethics and basic honesty,” and a “confusing mess,” the lawyers say in the agreement filed Monday in a San Francisco court.
If approved by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in July, Google will avoid a trial but must “delete and/or remediate billions of data records” collected while people are browsing online using Incognito mode.
“This agreement is a historic milestone because it requires dominant technology companies to be honest in their disclosures to users about how they collect and use user data, and to delete the data collected.” , indicates the document.
Google has committed to “immediately” reformulating the notice displayed on Incognito mode, to “inform users that it collects private browsing data”.
And the company will have to block by default, in Incognito mode, third-party cookies – software used in particular to track users online and target them with advertising. Google has already begun its transition towards the end of these highly criticized cookies.
The agreement does not provide for the payment of compensation, while the complaint filed in 2020 demanded $5 billion. But it leaves the option for Chrome users who feel wronged to sue Google separately for money.
“We are pleased to end lawsuits that we have always believed to be without merit,” said Jorge Castaneda, a Google spokesperson. “We are happy to remove old technical data that has never been associated with individuals and has never been used for any form of personalization.”
The original complaint accused Google of having “turned itself into an unaccountable trove of information, information so detailed and so vast that even George Orwell could never have dreamed of it.”