Alphabet can breathe a sigh of relief, at least for a moment. A federal judge in San Francisco, Richard Seeborg, has dismissed claims by consumers demanding that the Mountain View giant return $2.36 billion in allegedly undue profits. The amount was said to be a penalty for collecting data from users who knowingly turned off activity tracking features in apps. While the verdict protects Google’ s financial balance sheet from being drastically depleted, it also sheds light on the systemic tensions between the analytics-driven business model and the growing demands for privacy.
Friday’s decision follows a September trial in which a jury found Google guilty of secretly collecting activity data on millions of people. At the time, $425 million in damages was awarded – a significant but symbolic sum compared to the astronomical $31 billion originally sought by the plaintiffs. A key victory for Google in the latest iteration of the litigation is the rejection of the ‘disgorgement’ mechanism, i.e. the forced surrender of profits generated by the disputed practices. Judge Seeborg found that the plaintiffs had failed to provide sufficient evidence of “irreparable harm” to justify such a severe penalty or an immediate injunction to halt data processing.
For executives in the technology sector, the Rodriguez v. Google case sets a significant precedent. Google argued that forcibly blocking the collection of data linked to user accounts could ‘cripple’ the analytics services used by millions of third-party developers. This shows how deeply tracking mechanisms are woven into the Android ecosystem and the digital advertising infrastructure more broadly. Google’s financial victory, however, does not mean the end of its image and legal problems. The judge upheld the status of a class action involving 98 million users, meaning that the battle over the definition of ‘consent’ in the world of Big Tech will continue in the appellate courts.
In a landscape dominated by increasingly stringent regulations such as Europe’s RODO and California’s CCPA, this case highlights the giants’ determination to defend the integrity of their data engines. Although Google avoided the bleakest scenario this time, the line between necessary analytics and invasion of privacy remains one of the costliest flashpoints in the technology-legal relationship.
