Google claims that the verdict ‘misunderstands’ critical services it provides to Android devices. The company will be appealing the decision.
A California jury has concluded that Google misused customer cellular data, deciding that the Alphabet-owned company must pay more than $314.6m to Android users in the US state.
The jury sided with the plaintiffs and agreed that Google sent and received data from Android devices without the users’ permission while the phones were idle.
In their complaint, the plaintiffs allege that they had no say in Google’s “continual misappropriation of their cellular data”, the burden for which was “shouldered by Android device users for Google’s benefit”.
Google is set to appeal this decision, according to a statement by company spokesperson Jose Castaneda, who said that the verdict “misunderstands services that are critical to the security, performance and reliability of Android devices”.
While the plaintiffs’ attorney, Glen Summers, claimed that the verdict “forcefully vindicates the merits of this case and reflects the seriousness of Google’s misconduct”.
The lawsuit, which was filed in 2019, claims that Google “wrongfully disposed” of the plaintiffs’ property by using their cellular data without consent.
It alleged that Google collected a “higher volume” of data when their mobile phone remained untouched with some apps open and unused. Whereas, when compared to an iPhone, Apple only transferred around one-tenth of the information from its users, it added.
However, Google told the court that no Android users were harmed by the data transfers and that users consented to these practices in the company’s terms of service and privacy policies.
The company, however, is set to face another lawsuit this August after failing to persuade a different California judge that it did not breach its users’ privacy.
In the lawsuit, initially filed in 2020, the search giant is accused of collecting personal data from people’s phones after they switched off the tracking option.
However, Google rejected the accusations, arguing that its basic record-keeping “doesn’t hurt anyone”.
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