14 DAY TRIAL // A group of people known as Safari Users Against Google's Secret Tracking accused Google of having kept tracks of their web history in order to assail them with advertisements.
The group is made up of about a dozen Apple customers who want to sue Google for having installed cookies on their computers and smartphones in order to invade them with personalized ads, based on their online searches.
According to PR Newswire, using its DoubleClick adverts, Google took no notice of the users’ privacy settings and made use of secretly-installed tracking cookies to send them user-targeted ads.
The lawsuit against Google is now imminent
Google rejected the accusations and declared that the UK law did not apply to them. To top this, one of the Google representatives made a statement for The Independent, claiming that the case was “not serious, saying that the browsing habits of internet users are not protected as personal information, even when they potentially concern their physical health or sexuality.”
Apple users, on the other hand, thought otherwise and decided to take the matter to court. And now they are fully entitled to sue the giant tech company for having violated their privacy and chances are that they might actually win the case.
This is not a singular case for Google, nor would it be the first lawsuit that they would have to deal with for this type of offence towards its users. Back in 2012, a similar case took place in the US, where users sued Google for the same immoral action.
Back then the battle against Google was won, and FTC forced the company to pay a hefty fine for having made use of the users’ private information without their consent.
Since the court has deemed the action appropriate, Google should now expect a class-action lawsuit from British Safari users, as many have come forward since the incident to express their dissatisfaction with the way the company had used their personal information.