Google Fends Off Bid for Billions in Additional Penalties in U.S. Privacy Case

Google has successfully blocked an attempt by consumers to impose more than $2 billion in additional penalties in a long-running U.S. privacy class action, after a federal judge ruled that such punishment was not justified.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco rejected a request by plaintiffs to force Google to disgorge $2.36 billion in alleged profits and to halt certain advertising-related data practices. The ruling follows a jury verdict last September that found Google liable for secretly collecting app activity data from users who had turned off a key tracking setting.

While the jury held Google responsible, it awarded approximately $425 million in damages—far less than the $31 billion the plaintiffs had sought. The jury also issued an advisory verdict stating that forcing Google to surrender profits was not warranted, a recommendation Judge Seeborg said he agreed with.

Google had urged the court not to impose additional penalties beyond the jury’s award, arguing that the plaintiffs failed to prove the company gained unlawful profits from the disputed data collection. Judge Seeborg sided with Google, saying the consumers had not demonstrated they were entitled to disgorgement and that their estimates of Google’s profits were “insufficiently supported.”

The judge also rejected calls for a permanent injunction that would have restricted Google’s data collection practices. He ruled that the plaintiffs failed to show any “prospective, irreparable harm” that would justify such an order. Google had warned that limiting its ability to collect account-related data would severely damage analytics services relied upon by millions of app developers.

Despite denying the bid for additional penalties, Seeborg also turned down Google’s request to decertify the class action, which covers roughly 98 million users and 174 million devices. That decision keeps the jury’s liability finding intact.

The plaintiffs argued that Google continued its data practices without making meaningful changes to its privacy disclosures, even after the verdict. They said this supported their claim that Google was still benefiting from what they described as improperly collected data.

Google has denied any wrongdoing and said it plans to appeal the jury’s September verdict. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment following Friday’s ruling. David Boies, a lead attorney for the consumers, said the plaintiffs welcomed the decision as confirmation of the jury’s findings on liability.

The case, Rodriguez v. Google LLC, is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and remains one of the most closely watched privacy lawsuits facing a major technology company.