Google has agreed to delete a substantial amount of search data to resolve a lawsuit accusing the tech giant of tracking millions of US users who believed they were browsing the internet privately.
According to court documents filed on Monday, April 1 in San Francisco federal court, if the proposed settlement is approved by a judge, Google will be required to “delete and/or remediate billions of data records” associated with individuals using the Chrome browser’s incognito mode.
“This settlement is an historic step in requiring dominant technology companies to be honest in their representations to users about how the companies collect and employ user data, and to delete and remediate data collected,” stated lawyer David Boies in the filing.
The settlement, which awaits approval from Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in a hearing slated for July 30, would allow Google to avoid a trial in the class-action suit. Despite no cash damages being mandated in the settlement, Chrome users retain the option to sue Google separately if they feel wronged and seek monetary compensation.
“We are pleased to settle this lawsuit, which we always believed was meritless,” remarked Google spokesman Jorge Castaneda in a statement. “We are happy to delete old technical data that was never associated with an individual and was never used for any form of personalization.”
At the heart of the lawsuit was the “Incognito Mode” in Google Chrome, with plaintiffs arguing that it misled users into believing their online activity was shielded from tracking by the company. Internal Google emails presented during the lawsuit revealed that users in incognito mode were indeed being monitored by the tech giant for purposes such as measuring web traffic and advertising.
The settlement requires Google to block third-party tracking “cookies” by default in Incognito Mode for the next five years. These cookies, small files used to target advertising by tracking web navigation, have raised significant privacy concerns. Google’s move aligns with its earlier announcement in January 2020 to phase out third-party cookies within two years, although the implementation has faced delays.
The regulation of cookies has become increasingly stringent, with measures such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California’s privacy regulations aiming to protect user data and privacy rights.