The U.S. Court of Appeals has decided to reopen the collective privacy lawsuit against Google’s Chrome browser.
Users of Google’s Chrome browser filed a collective lawsuit, claiming that Google collected their personal information without permission when they did not choose to sync the browser with their Google accounts. The case was initially dismissed by a lower court and subsequently appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
On Tuesday, August 20th, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 3-0 to overturn the lower court judge’s ruling. Three circuit judges believed that the lower court judge should evaluate whether Google’s collection of data from Chrome users while browsing online was reasonable.
In 2023, Google agreed to destroy billions of records to settle a lawsuit that alleged Google tracked information of users who used private browsing, including collecting information even when using Chrome’s “incognito” mode.
Google and its lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
Plaintiff lawyer Matthew Wessler expressed satisfaction with the latest decision of the appellate court and looks forward to the trial.
The proposed lawsuit covers Chrome users who did not sync their browsers with Google accounts starting from July 27, 2016.
The plaintiffs argue that Google should abide by Chrome’s privacy statement, which states that users can “use Chrome without providing any personal information” and that Google will not receive such information unless the user turns on the “sync” function.
The lower court judge stated that Google’s privacy policy allows for data collection, regardless of which browser the plaintiffs use.
In the Tuesday ruling, Circuit Judge Milan Smith stated that the lower court judge’s view was mistaken.
Smith said, “In this case, Google touted its privacy policy in promoting Chrome, implying that certain information would not be sent to Google unless users turned on the sync function.”
“However, users may not necessarily understand that they are consenting to controversial data collection,” Smith wrote.
The Appeals Court has sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who dismissed the case in December 2022.