A U.S. appeals court has ruled that Google must contend with a reinstated lawsuit filed by users of its Chrome browser, who allege that the tech giant illegally gathered their personal data without their consent, even though they had opted not to sync their browsers with their Google accounts.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a lower court’s decision to dismiss the class action lawsuit, stating that the judge should have considered whether reasonable users of Chrome would have consented to Google’s data collection practices while browsing.
This decision comes after Google agreed last year to delete billions of records as part of a settlement in another lawsuit, where it was accused of tracking users in “Incognito” mode, suggesting they could browse privately.
Google responded to the appeals court ruling, expressing disagreement and confidence that they would prevail, citing that Chrome Sync provides seamless browser use across devices with clear privacy controls.
Plaintiff’s attorney Matthew Wessler welcomed the decision, expressing eagerness to proceed to trial. The class potentially includes Chrome users from July 27, 2016, who chose not to synchronize their browsers with their Google accounts. These users argued that Google should adhere to Chrome’s privacy notice, which states that no personal information is required to use the browser and that such data wouldn’t be collected without enabling the sync feature.
The original ruling by the lower court judge pointed to Google’s broader privacy policy that permits data collection, suggesting this policy applied even if the users didn’t sync their browsers. However, Circuit Judge Milan Smith criticized this rationale in the appellate decision, noting that Google’s advertising suggested that certain data would only be collected if sync was enabled, a point likely unclear to users regarding consent.
The case has now been sent back to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, for further proceedings. The previous decision in the Incognito-related settlement allows affected users to individually sue Google for damages, leading to tens of thousands of claims in California state courts.
