Find out what clicks on FoxBusiness.com.
Google agreed to pay $68 million to settle a class-action lawsuit arguing that its voice-activated assistant secretly recorded smart device users in violation of their privacy.
A preliminary settlement was filed Friday in federal court in San Jose, Calif., but must still be approved by U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman.
The tech giant was accused of illegally recording and broadcasting private conversations after triggering its Google Assistant tool so it could send them targeted ads.
Google has agreed to pay $68 million to settle a class-action lawsuit arguing that its voice-activated assistant secretly recorded smart device users. (Getty Images/Getty Images)
Google Assistant, which is only supposed to record when a user says phrases like “Hey Google” or “Okay Google” or when someone manually presses a button on the device, inappropriately recorded personal conversations when these “hot words” were not used, without the knowledge of users of smartphones, home speakers, laptops, tablets, Chromecast media players and even Google wireless headphones, according to the trial.
Users claimed they were targeted with ads based on things they said when they didn’t try to trigger their smart devices with a hot word.
GOOGLE WILL PAY $425 MILLION AFTER YEARS OF INAPPROPRIATE SPYING ON SMARTPHONE ACTIVITIES
The tech giant was accused of illegally recording and broadcasting private conversations after triggering its Google Assistant tool so it could send them targeted ads. (GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Google admitted no wrongdoing, but said it decided to settle to avoid the “uncertainty, risk, expense, inconvenience and distraction” of lengthy litigation, according to court documents.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys can seek up to one-third of the settlement fund, or about $22.7 million, for legal fees.
Apple has reached a similar regulation with smartphone users in December 2024 thanks to its virtual assistant, Siri, for $95 million.
Google admitted no wrongdoing, but said it decided to settle to avoid the “uncertainty, risk, expense, inconvenience and distraction” of lengthy litigation. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images / Getty Images)
GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE
Google also settled other privacy complaints in the past, including one last spring, when it agreed to pay $1.4 billion to Texas to settle a lawsuit claiming the company collected user data without authorization.
It was also ordered in September to pay $425.7 million for violating user privacy by collecting data on millions of people who had disabled a tracking feature in their Google accounts.
In 2024, the company agreed to destroy billions of data records on users’ private browsing activities to settle a lawsuit accusing it of tracking people who thought they were browsing privately, including in “Incognito” mode.
Reuters contributed to this report.
