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A California state jury has found that Google misused the cellular data of Android users and must pay $314.6 million (£229m) to Android users resident in the state.
The decision could have broader implications in the US, as a parallel case is pending in San Jose federal court that applies to Android users in the country’s other 49 states.
The plaintiffs had argued Google misused users’ cellular data by sending and receiving information on their devices while they were idle, constituting “mandatory and unavoidable burdens” for Android users that were “for Google’s benefit”.
‘Unavoidable burdens’
The class action case, which was filed in state court in 2019, was based on the argument that under California law phone users’ cellular data is their property, and is subject to conversion, a civil cause of action that involves taking a person’s property without permission.
The plaintiffs argued that Google was therefore liable for the value of the data taken from Android users, which while small, dated back to 2016 under the class period and added up quickly.
In the federal case, the equivalent damages rise into the billions of dollars.
The plaintiffs’ attorney Glen Summers said in a statement that the verdict “forcefully vindicates the merits of this case and reflects the seriousness of Google’s misconduct”.
Google said it would appeal and reiterated its previous position that the verdict “misunderstands services that are critical to the security, performance, and reliability of Android devices”.
Google argued that users incurred no actual losses, and that they consented to Google’s “passive” data transfers via terms of service and device settings.
The plaintiffs argued that the data Google transferred to itself included information for targeted advertising business, meaning the plaintiffs were in effect unknowingly subsidising Google’s ad business.
‘Passive’ transfers
The plaintiffs had argued that users do not object to data transmissions while they are engaged with Google apps or services, but that they were not informed that Google would be using their data while their phones were idle to send and receive data about their usage.
The case is unusual in that most class-action lawsuits are eventually settled and do not make it to trial.
Google has recently paid $500m to settle shareholder litigation, $50m to settle class allegations of discrimination against Black employees and $100m to advertisers who said they were overcharged for clicks on ads.
The same plaintiff lawyers from legal firms Korein Tillery, Bartlit Beck and McManis Faulkner are litigating a parallel case in San Jose federal court with a trial scheduled for April of next year.
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