A Google will proceed to undoing of thousands of millions of data records. At issue is a case over the alleged user tracking who surfed the internet in incognito mode.
The agreement was presented earlier this week, in a federal court in Oakland, California, USA, and is valued at more than 5 billion dollars.
The class action began in 2020, covering millions of Google users who have resorted to anonymous browsing since June 1, 2016. A preliminary agreement was, however, reached in December 2023, thus avoiding a trial scheduled for February 2024 .
According to users, Google’s analytics, cookies and applications allow Alphabet to improperly track users who set Google’s Chrome browser to “Incognito” mode and others to browse incognito.
Under the terms of the agreement, Google must update information about the data it collects in anonymous browsing and also allow users who use this browsing mode to block third-party cookies for five years.
“Google will collect less data from users’ anonymous browsing sessions and make less money from that data”, the technology lawyers assured. David Boies, one of the speakers, considers the agreement “a historic step in demanding honesty and responsibility from dominant technology companies”.
Jose Castaneda, a Google spokesperson, emphasizes that the company has “happy to delete old technical data that was never associated with an individual and was never used for any form of personalization”.
Tags: Google prepares destroy millions data collected anonymous browsing
