SAN FRANCISCO, January 31, 2026, 05:17 (PST)
- A U.S. judge declined to compel Google to surrender $2.36 billion in alleged profits or issue a sweeping injunction
- The court also denied Google’s bid to decertify the class, leaving the jury’s approximate $425 million award unchanged
- Google announced plans to appeal the September verdict
A U.S. federal judge in San Francisco dismissed an attempt to impose over $2 billion in extra penalties on Alphabet’s Google in a privacy class action. The court refused to order Google to hand over $2.36 billion in alleged profits or halt certain data practices. At the same time, the judge rejected Google’s request to decertify the class, keeping the September jury verdict intact. (Reuters)
The ruling is crucial because it caps the potential payout for users following a trial focused on a privacy “off” switch. Seeborg called the post-verdict motions from both sides efforts to “augment and upset the verdict in various ways.” (Courthousenews)
With U.S. markets closed on Saturday, Alphabet shares remained inactive.
The case kicked off in July 2020, with lead plaintiff Anibal Rodriguez and others suing over Google’s collection of “anonymized” app activity data — even after they disabled a Google account setting called supplemental Web App and Activity, or sWAA. Following a three-week trial, jurors held Google liable for invasion of privacy under the California Constitution and intrusion upon seclusion. They dismissed the claim under the state’s computer data access law but handed down $425,651,947 in actual damages.
The sWAA setting tracks a user’s Chrome history along with activity from sites, apps, and devices linked to Google services, the judge’s order states. Plaintiffs argue Google kept gathering and exploiting this data for commercial gain despite the control being switched off.
Following the verdict, plaintiffs pushed for a permanent injunction—a court order to block Google from gathering and storing sWAA-off data in the future, mandate deletion of existing data, and demand destruction of associated algorithms and models. Seeborg rejected this, saying they failed to prove “prospective, irreparable harm” and dismissed the requested remedies as “far too broad.”
On disgorgement — the compelled surrender of profits — Seeborg argued that the damages award already provided users with a sufficient legal remedy. He called their $2.36 billion profit estimate “insufficiently supported.” He also noted that equity’s role is to cover shortfalls in money damages, not to offer plaintiffs “a second bite at the apple.”
Google warned that an order barring it from gathering users’ account-related data would “cripple” an analytics service used by millions of app developers, according to court filings. The company denies any wrongdoing.
The judge dismissed Google’s attempt to remove the class-action label, saying the company misunderstood the plaintiffs’ argument. Google had pointed to Apple’s iOS pop-up asking users if they wanted an app “not to track” them. But Seeborg ruled that didn’t undermine common questions in the case, even among users who allowed tracking but had sWAA disabled.
Google didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment. David Boies, the lead attorney representing the consumers, said they appreciated the ruling backing the jury’s decision.
The final bill isn’t set yet. Google plans to appeal the September verdict, and the appeals court could still reconsider both the liability ruling and whether the case applies to the entire class.
