Google Fined $425M In Privacy Breach & $381M In France As It Avoids Divesting

Google recently emerged victorious—all things considered—in a recent trial that looked into whether the company held an unfair advantage in the search engine market.

While the company avoided the possibility of divesting products such as Chrome, its browser, and Android, its operating system, it will be required to share data relating to user searches and interactions. This requirement is set to boost Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) sector rivals, including OpenAI, Perplexity, Microsoft, Anthropic and others.

It also won’t be able to enter or maintain exclusive contracts with partners to propel its products through revenue share payments or licensing for applications such as Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, and the Gemini app.

However, it can continue to pay partners to push or preload its products—a move that would help partners such as Apple, Samsung, Motorola, Mozilla, and others attract funds that help in research & development, and in other ways.

Of course, Google was happy to discard the thought of having to part ways with its prized possession, but it wasn’t too thrilled with the decision of having to share user search and interaction data with rivals and potential rivals.

It even voiced concerns about “how these requirements will impact our users and their privacy, and we’re reviewing the decision closely.”

This comes as Google was fined $425 million by a federal jury for invading users’ privacy. The tech giant continued collecting data from millions of customers who had turned off a tracking feature in their Google account.

Google was accused of collecting, saving, and using data collected from users’ mobile devices for over eight years, as well as violating its own privacy promises made under its Web & App Activity setting. The company leveraged its partnerships with apps such as Uber, Venmo, Instagram, and others that use Google analytics services.

The class action lawsuit, which was filed in 2020, consisted of around 98 million users spanning 174 million devices, for which the trial took place in the federal court in San Francisco, where users were seeking over $31 billion in damages.

As such, the court found that Google was guilty on two out of three charges. The one that the company was found not guilty of was acting with malice, which is why the court felt Google was not entitled to any punitive damages.

Of course, the tech conglomerate plans to appeal the decision, with Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda saying, “This decision misunderstands how our products work. Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalization, we honor that choice.”

This isn’t the first time Google has faced penalties for violating privacy lawsuits. Earlier in the year, it was ordered to pay $1.375 billion for violating privacy laws in Texas.


Google was also penalized in Europe, as France’s Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), the country’s data protection authority, fined the company €325 million ($381 million) for acting without users’ consent.

Here, Google was found guilty of using cookies and displaying ads improperly to Gmail users.

CNIL provided Google with six months to ensure that Gmail users aren’t offered ads between emails in their inboxes without gaining their approval, and valid consent is received from users for the creation of a Google account for the placement of ad trackers.

If Google doesn’t comply with the order and complete the requirements by the stipulated date, it would be subject to a penalty of €100,000 ($116,375) per day, until the terms are met.

Despite these two penalties, Google’s parent company—Alphabet—has been seeing its shares soar thanks to the ruling that confirmed it didn’t need to divest Chrome and Android. The victory saw Google’s share price close over 9% higher on Wednesday, adding approximately $210 billion to its market value.

Do you think Google’s operations need to be scrutinized more carefully based on its privacy violations?

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