Google reaches $5 billion settlement in privacy lawsuit

Google settled a $5 billion lawsuit that accused it of secretly tracking millions of users who used incognito (private) mode in its Chrome browser.

District judge in Oakland, California, Yvonne González Rogers suspended a trial scheduled for February 5, 2024 after a preliminary agreement was reached by the plaintiff users and the company's lawyers. The terms of the agreement are unknown.

Millions of users were tracked

The lawsuit, which was filed in 2020, alleged that the tracking had occurred since 2016 and demanded payment of at least $5 billion in "damages" for violations of federal and state (California) privacy laws.

The plaintiffs argued that the company's cookies, analytics and applications allowed their searches and internet activity to be tracked even when they used the web browser Chrome in "incognito" mode and other browsers in "private" mode. They alleged that this fact turned Google into a "treasure of irresponsible information."