Google pledges to destroy browsing data to Ssettle ‘incognito’ lawsuit

livemint.com:

Google plans to destroy a trove of data that reflects millions of users’ web-browsing histories, part of a settlement of a lawsuit that alleged the company tracked millions of users without their knowledge. The class action, filed in 2020, accused Google of misleading users about how Chrome tracked the activity of anyone who used the private “Incognito" browsing option. The lawsuit alleged that Google’s marketing and privacy disclosures didn’t properly inform users of the kinds of data being collected, including details about which websites they viewed.

The settlement details, filed Monday in San Francisco federal court, set out the actions the company will take to change its practices around private browsing. According to the court filing, Google has agreed to destroy billions of data points that the lawsuit alleges it improperly collected, to update disclosures about what it collects in private browsing and give users the option to disable third-party cookies in that setting. The agreement doesn’t include damages for individual users.

But the settlement will allow individuals to file claims. Already the plaintiff attorneys have filed 50 in California state court. Attorney David Boies, who represents the consumers in the lawsuit, said the settlement requires Google to delete and remediate “in unprecedented scope and scale" the data it improperly collected.

“This settlement is an historic step in requiring honesty and accountability from dominant technology companies," Boies said. Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the settlement. The settlement would remove one case from Google’s busy docket while forcing the company to retroactively delete valuable user data, a rare outcome to a legal