Google hit with lawsuit over new AI data scraping privacy policy

cointelegraph.com:

Google is now facing a lawsuit in the follow-up to its recent privacy policy update that accuses the tech giant of misusing large amounts of data, including copyrighted material in artificial intelligence (AI) training. 

The lawsuit was filed on July 11 by eight individuals who claim to represent “millions of class members” - internet users and copyright holders- who have had their privacy and property rights violated in light of Google’s recent updates to its privacy policy.

In its opening statement, the plaintiffs accuse Google of “harvesting data in secret” to build its AI products without consent.

Google’s privacy policy changes now allow it to take data that is publicly available to use for artificial intelligence (AI) training purposes.

The lawsuit points out that Google’s decision not only violates rights, but gives it an “unfair advantage” compared to its competitors who lawfully obtain or purchase data to train AI. Ryan Clarkson of Clarkson Law Firm, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said in a statement in the suit that:

The plaintiffs argued that “publicly available” does not and has never entailed that it is “free to use for any purpose.”

Related: OpenAI pauses ChatGPT’s Bing feature, as users were jumping paywalls

According to the lawsuit, Google could potentially owe upwards of $5 billion in damages. It also requested a court order which would order Google to obtain users' explicit permission first. 

This includes allowing users to opt out of its "illicit data collection,” along with the ability to delete already existing data or provide "fair compensation” to owners of the data.

Earlier this week, author and comedian Sarah Silverman, together with two other authors, filed a lawsuit against ChatGPT maker