Alphabet’s subsidiary Google has been ordered to pay a fine of $314.6 million to the state of California for exploiting customers’ cellphone data.
A jury in San Jose, California, ruled on Tuesday that the Mountain View-based tech company was liable for transferring and receiving information from Android devices while they were idle, without users’ consent.
According to the lawsuit, which was filed in 2019 on behalf of approximately 14 million Californians, Google’s actions irrevocably caused “mandatory and unavoidable burdens shouldered by Android device users for Google’s benefit.”
In response, Google argued that no Android users were harmed by these practices and that users had consented to them in the company’s terms of service and privacy policies.
The jury agreed with the plaintiffs’ complaint that Google used customers’ data to send and receive information from their devices when they weren’t connected to a WiFi network. Google allegedly used this information for its own benefit, offering targeted advertisements and enhancing its mapping capabilities.
Glen Summers, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said the verdict “forcefully vindicates the merits of this case and reflects the seriousness of Google’s misconduct.”
Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said that Google will appeal the jury’s decision. In a statement to Reuters, he told the media that the verdict “misunderstands services that are critical to the security, performance, and reliability of Android devices.”
This verdict applies only to the state of California. A similar but separate lawsuit has been filed by another group, bringing the same claims against Google on behalf of Android users in the other 49 states. The ruling in that case is scheduled for April 2026.
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