Google has been told by a US jury to pay $425m for violating the privacy of tens of millions of users who opted out of a feature tracking app use.
The jury in San Francisco handed down the verdict on Wednesday after a group of Google users accused the tech giant of continuing to collect data from third-party apps even when they changed their account settings to prevent the practice.
Google said the decision misunderstood how its products work and that it planned to appeal.
“Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalization, we honor that choice,” Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said in a statement.
In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that Google collected and sold users’ mobile app activity data in breach of privacy assurances contain