A U.S. appeals court has revived a case against Google, alleging unauthorized data collection from its users. The court ruled that the judge who dismissed the litigation made an error in her ruling.
The case involves Google Chrome users who claim they did not authorize the company to collect their data. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in their favor, citing Google’s policies as evidence.
According to Google’s policy notice for Chrome, personal information is only sent to the company if users choose to store that data in their Google Account by enabling synchronization. However, the users who filed the lawsuit had not turned on sync and were surprised to discover that their data had still been collected.
The plaintiffs argued that “Google’s actions are a serious violation of user privacy.”
While Google did not deny collecting data from its users, it defended itself by pointing out its privacy policy, which states that they collect information about how users use their services and interact with ads and content.
Initially, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh rejected Google’s defense but was later replaced by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers when elevated to an appeals court position. In response, Google filed a new request to dismiss the case based on other policies and agreements regarding account creation and data collection.
Judge Rogers ruled in favor of Google, emphasizing these additional policies as more relevant in her decision-making process.
However, the appeals court disagreed with Judge Rogers’ ruling and stated that she failed to consider the Chrome policy notice adequately.
The unanimous panel of judges remanded the case back to district court for trial.
Google expressed disagreement with this ruling and maintained confidence in its position based on factual evidence supporting Chrome Sync’s functionality and clear privacy controls.
As of now, there has been no comment from lawyers representing the Chrome users involved in this case.