(Image Credit: IMAGN)
San Jose, California – A San Jose jury has ordered Google to pay more than $314 million to Android users in California, ruling that the company illegally collected personal data from smartphones while the devices were idle. The verdict marks one of the largest awards yet in a privacy lawsuit against a major tech firm and may signal broader legal challenges ahead for Google and its data practices.
The class action lawsuit, filed in 2019 on behalf of approximately 14 million California residents, accused Google of siphoning off users’ data in the background without meaningful consent. Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that even when Android phones were not in use, the devices continued to send information to Google servers—data that, while seemingly passive, helped the company fine-tune its advertising profile on individual users. The lawsuit called this an “unavoidable burden” on consumers, one that benefitted Google financially while eroding user autonomy.
Google denied wrongdoing and maintained that users had agreed to data collection through its privacy policy and terms of service. A spokesperson for the company, Jose Castaneda, said Google would appeal the decision, arguing that the verdict “misunderstands services that are critical to the security, performance, and reliability of Android devices.”
But jurors rejected that defense, awarding $314,646,109 in damages. Their decision suggests a growing public and legal intolerance for what has long been standard operating procedure in Silicon Valley: data harvesting tucked behind lengthy and often inscrutable terms of service.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs hailed the verdict as a landmark decision that vindicates concerns over digital surveillance and corporate overreach. Glen Summers, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said the ruling clearly affirms that Google’s practices violated California law and the expectations of millions of users.
While this case focused solely on California, its implications could extend far beyond. A nearly identical lawsuit is moving through federal court in San Jose on behalf of Android users in the other 49 states. That case is set to go to trial in April 2026. Should that jury reach a similar conclusion, Google could be facing a multi-billion-dollar reckoning.
For Google’s investors and competitors, the ruling may raise questions about the sustainability of business models built on opaque data collection. It also puts pressure on regulators to clarify how far tech companies can go in mining user data without explicit consent.
