Alphabet Inc.’s Google has agreed to settle a consumer-privacy lawsuit that alleged the company secretly tracked millions of people who thought they were browsing the internet privately, according to a Reuters report Thursday.
The lawsuit sought at least $5 billion. Settlement terms were not disclosed, but the lawyers said they expected to present a formal settlement for court approval by Feb. 24, 2024.
The plaintiffs claim Google’s
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analytics, cookies and apps let the company track their activity even when they set Google’s Chrome browser to “Incognito” mode and other browsers to “private” browsing status.
This, they assert, turned Google into an “unaccountable trove of information” to learn about their friends, shopping habits and “potentially embarrassing things” they sought online.
Google and lawyers for the plaintiffs were not immediately available for comment.