Google has settled its Google Assistant privacy lawsuit. The company has agreed to pay $68 million in order to put the issue behind it. This lawsuit claimed that Google Assistant spied on smartphone users and thus violated their privacy.
A preliminary class action settlement was filed on Friday night in San Jose, California. It does, however, require approval from the US District Judge, Beth Labson Freeman.
False positive Google Assistant triggers were the cause of all this, and Google decided to settle the case
Google was accused, by smartphone users, of illegally recording and disseminating private conversations after Google Assistant was triggered. They were then used for advertising purposes.
As many of you know, you can trigger Google Assistant with hot words. For example, you can say ‘Hey Google’, or ‘Okay Google’ in order to trigger it. Well, you can do that on supported devices.
In any case, users objected that they started receiving ads after Google Assistant misperceived what they said as hot words. Google did deny any wrongdoing, but decided to settle the case to avoid the risk.
This settlement covers people who bought Google devices or were subjected to false accepts since May 18, 2016. Lawyers for plaintiffs, however, may seek up to one-third of the settlement fund. In other words, they may recieve $22.7 million for legal fees.
Apple had a similar situation back in 2024
If all of this sounds familiar to you, there’s a good reason why. Apple had a similar case on its hands, and it also decided to settle it back in 2024. The company had to pay out $95 million as a result.
This one seems to be a done deal now as well. All that is required at this point is the approval by the US District Judge, and that’ll be that. This is just one of many legal proceedings that we’ve talked about in the last year or so.
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