US Judge Orders Google To Pay $425Million Fine Over Privacy Violation Of 98 Million Users

According to Al Jazeera, the verdict, delivered on Wednesday, followed a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 by users who accused Google of continuing to siphon data from third-party mobile apps despite assurances that its Web & App Activity settings allowed people to block such monitoring.

Ajury in San Francisco has ordered tech giant Google to pay a staggering $425 million in damages after finding the company guilty of violating the privacy of nearly 100 million users who had deliberately opted out of its data-tracking features.

According to the plaintiffs, Google covertly harvested and monetised sensitive app activity information, directly breaching its own privacy promises. The case covers an estimated 98 million users.

Google, however, dismissed the jury’s decision, insisting that its systems respected user choices.

“Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalization, we honour that choice,” company spokesperson Jose Castaneda said in a statement, adding that the firm would appeal.

During trial arguments, Google maintained that the data collected was “nonpersonal” and “pseudonymous,” stored only in “segregated, secured, and encrypted locations.” But jurors rejected that line of defence, siding with the claimants who accused the company of exploiting users for profit.

The ruling piles onto Google’s growing list of courtroom troubles. In May 2025, the company agreed to cough up $1.375 billion to the state of Texas for illegally capturing biometric data, including residents’ facial geometry and voiceprints, as well as surreptitiously tracking their locations even after they disabled the feature .