In a ruling issued on Friday, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg declined plaintiffs' request to force Google to surrender $2.36 billion in alleged profits tied to the company’s collection of app activity data from users who had turned off a tracking feature. The decision preserves the jury’s earlier advisory finding that disgorgement was unwarranted and leaves intact the class action status for tens of millions of users.
The underlying jury trial in September determined that Google was liable for secretly collecting app activity data from millions of users who had disabled a tracking control. The jury awarded roughly $425 million in damages to the class action plaintiffs, a sum far below the $31 billion plaintiffs originally sought. In an advisory verdict at the time, jurors concluded that disgorgement - a legal remedy seeking the defendant’s profits - was not appropriate.
Plaintiffs had pressed for a court order requiring Google to give up profits they contend were illegitimately earned through its tracking practices. They also sought injunctive relief that would curtail some of Google’s ad-related data collection. In their post-trial submissions, the plaintiffs argued that Google had not changed its privacy disclosures or data collection behavior despite the jury’s verdict.
Google opposed the requests, urging Judge Seeborg not to tack the proposed penalty onto the jury’s September verdict. The company further warned that a permanent injunction barring collection of certain account-related data would "cripple" a widely used analytics service relied upon by millions of app developers.
In his written decision, Seeborg said the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate any "prospective, irreparable harm" that would justify a permanent injunction against Google’s data collection practices. He also found the plaintiffs did not establish an entitlement to disgorgement and described their estimate of Google’s profits as "insufficiently supported."
Separately, Seeborg rejected Google’s own request to decertify the class that represents about 98 million users and 174 million devices. That ruling maintains the collective legal status of the plaintiffs even as the judge declines to grant the monetary and injunctive relief they sought.
Google has denied wrongdoing and said it plans to appeal the September verdict. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment following Friday’s order. Lead attorneys for the plaintiffs likewise had no immediate comment.
The case is Rodriguez v. Google LLC, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 3:20-cv-04688. Counsel listed for the plaintiffs include David Boies and Mark Mao of Boies Schiller Flexner; Bill Carmody and Shawn Rabin of Susman Godfrey; and John Yanchunis and Ryan McGee of Morgan & Morgan. Counsel for Google includes Michael Attanasio, Benedict Hur and Simona Agnolucci of Cooley.