As part of a possible legal settlement, Google has consented to remove billions of data and adhere to certain limitations on its ability to follow users, according to BBC News.
The agreement seeks to settle a class action lawsuit that was filed in the US in 2020 and claimed that the tech company had violated users’ privacy by gathering data even while they were using ‘private mode’ on its websites.
Damages in the complaint had been sought at $5 billion. Despite contesting the allegations, Google is in favor of the agreement. In response to the case, it has already made adjustments. Outside the United States, the data deletion will also be applicable.
Not long after the parties announced their intention to resolve the lawsuit in January, the business modified its disclosures to explicitly state that it continued to collect user data even in cases when users choose to search in private or using the “Incognito” browser setting.
Because it doesn’t keep the browsing history on the computer being used, that mode offers a little bit more privacy.
Google ends legal action about tracking in “private mode.” Within the same month, the company said that it had begun testing a feature that would automatically prevent all users of Google Chrome from accessing third-party cookies, which are used to track user behavior.
The provisions of the settlement agreement, which was filed on Monday in federal court in San Francisco, state that it has committed to guarantee that the limit remains in place for five years and that it had made the limitation automatic for Incognito users immediately after the complaint was filed in 2020.
According to the court document, Google also consented on Monday to remove “hundreds of billions” of records of private browsing data that it had gathered.