Google can’t defend shady Chrome data hoarding as “browser agnostic,” court says

Court reverses Google win in case from Chrome users who chose not to sync data.

See full article...

 

[Pishaw]

OK. But keep between you and your friend. It's borscht.

Google says you are into New Wave borscht as opposed to traditional, and you don't like sour cream.

 

[Spice_Weasel_Bam]

Thing is, it's not Chrome collecting data, hence the browser-agnostic argument. Chrome is just being tracked by site-based mechanisms the same as any visiting browser. If the expectation is that Google websites should be tracking unsigned-in Chrome visits less than other browsers, that's... certainly an expectation. I hope Google is learning a lesson in legalese, if nothing else.

Unless I missed it, the article didn't tell me much about what data is collected. I see "a user's IP address and "unique, persistent cookie identifiers."" If that's all they're talking about and there wasn't additional info sent back collected client side by Chrome, then I would expect Google.com to still give me cookies and keep logs whether I'm signed into Chrome or not.

 

[melgross]

Its been pretty clear for some time that the terms “Google” and “privacy” don’t go together.

 

[jaffy]

I don't understand all the Google hate. I'm not happy that they have access to so much information about me, but they behave more responsibly with that data than any other company I can think of that also has access to my data. Or does everyone hate them all (AT&T, Verizon, Microsoft, T-mobile, Facebook, etc) equally if not more, and the Google hate is just manifesting because that's what the article is about?

 

[Toms6]

That's what I took from the article too. Or did I miss something??

Well, it’s what we both took from the article, but if you look at the linked judgement it says something different - that the Google surveillance code on a web site requests much of (but not all of) the same information.

 

[pjcamp]

Eric Schmidt just recently gave us a master class in how, under his management, Google erased the "Don't" from "Don't be evil."

Look, people. Don't use Chrome. Exploiting you is Google's business model. Also Microsoft's so don't use Edge either. It isn't like we're lacking browsers that explicitly protect your privacy, like Firefox and Brave.

If you wind up on a site that hired some dimwit to design specifically for Chrome, send them an email telling them to pound sand and take your business elsewhere.

 

[fkaOld_one]

I don't understand all the Google hate. I'm not happy that they have access to so much information about me, but they behave more responsibly with that data than any other company I can think of that also has access to my data. Or does everyone hate them all (AT&T, Verizon, Microsoft, T-mobile, Facebook, etc) equally if not more, and the Google hate is just manifesting because that's what the article is about?

Google, once upon a time, behaved decently towards users. The others you mention have always screwed their users.

 

[taxythingy]

They do not know what my favorite fucking soup is!

Alphabet soup?

 

[Dark Jaguar]

No reasonable person could know something they never opted into in the first place. So very many sites with Google's APIs in them have been collecting data FOR google, even from that rare person who never once visited one of Google's web sites, and they did this for ages long before the EU required web sites to start giving SOME level of "informed consent" with those constant annoying nags to "opt into" or "opt out of" or simply be told "we're doing this, you have no choice except to leave the site right now". Like California's lead warning, the underpinning concern's right, but the solution was clunky and ineffective and does nothing to address all the data being scooped without warning.

If I embed a Youtube video right here, right now, you have no idea that Google's collecting data on you just for viewing my post, and no information whatsoever in my embed telling you as such.

Count me into that class action. This never needed to happen. Google, and in fact NO company, needs to collect all this data. It became the modern industry standard expectation, but it never should have, and Google once upon a time was massively profitable WITHOUT such information scraping, believe it or not.

Advertisers will just have to go back to settling for scatter-shot blasting the internet at large with their ads like they used to without the ability to target anyone's patterns. It worked before, it'll work just fine. If everyone's got that limitation, they're all still on a level playing field.

 

[Rkone]

I find it amusing that judges think laypersons can understand the legalese in the Chrome Privacy Notice easier than they can understand the difference between browser tracking and website tracking.

But yay for privacy!!

 

[Mrbonk]

Well, it’s what we both took from the article, but if you look at the linked judgement it says something different - that the Google surveillance code on a web site requests much of (but not all of) the same information.

Yeah based on what the other poster replied to it seems it's less about what Chrome itself is doing with Sync is off and more about what normal Google embedded data gathering code on websites scrapes when you visit them. Which would be browser agnostic and have nothing to do with Sync at all right? But they seem to think that somehow the way the Sync privacy policy is written a "reasonable" person would somehow think this means Google would never gather any info from you on the Internet ever? That seems like a wildly naive interpretation and that the original ruling would be correct then.
I haven't followed the links of course but seems like that would be just kind of dumb. Like I would always expect Google to contribute to gather data from normal web use even if I didn't use Sync.

 

[Zaifawd]

So I am not real surprised that the synch data still made it to the Google servers. It's Google. Come on folks, are you surprised?

What concerns me is whether other Chromium browers are doing exactly the same thing because Google wrote Chromium.

And indeed whether or not, being Chromium based, they are going to be forced to adopt FLOC or whatever comes along after, or will they be able to ditch the ensuing Google evil?

 

[jatm]

Thats the problem. I dont see that anyone can even estimate how much damages they suffered, and that amount isnt going to be enough to make a diddly difference in anyone's life. What people really want is for them to stop doing it, but thats not the way a class action is structured.

How much did Google profit from hovering the data that users expected they didn't? Could not that be considered to be the damage incurred? Then triple that as punishment because google should have known they did something bad.

 

[SilentChasm]

So I am not real surprised that the synch data still made it to the Google servers. It's Google. Come on folks, are you surprised?

What concerns me is whether other Chromium browers are doing exactly the same thing because Google wrote Chromium.

And indeed whether or not, being Chromium based, they are going to be forced to adopt FLOC or whatever comes along after, or will they be able to ditch the ensuing Google evil?

But it's not the sync data that's being sent to Google when sync is turned off though. It's the normal data that Google's ads/analytics code embedded in a webpage sends to Google. Every browser that runs those scripts sends the same type of data, even Firefox if you don't have the privacy settings turned up.

As with the Incognito mode suit, I'd argue that it'd be anti-competitive if Google treated their own browser's privacy mode/settings better than other browsers by not running those scripts. They'd also have to send some kind of signal like a "Do Not Track for Google" header just to let the server side know not to collect or process the data.

It also runs the risk of making terms of service/EULA's for a company indecipherable as instead of having one for what each product handles, they'll need to present one that covers all their possible services that you might access through something as general as a web-browser.

 

[Robin-3]

Calling the class "hopelessly diverse," Google claimed that each Chrome user who chose not to sync "requires individualized resolution" because "Google does not profit from class members equally" and "users do not value their data equally." Settling the suit as a class action, Google warned, would make it hard not to "over- and under-compensate class members" and "avoid compensating uninjured class members."

IANAL, but it seems to me that the other relevant part (when considering damages and consequences) is the harm done to the plaintiffs, not only the profit Google realized. And I imagine that's part of the problem: how do you quantify the harm done to someone by having their data taken from them without their permission? There's no stolen or damaged item to value; there's no physical injury to assess. How do you put a value on a violation of privacy?

 

[SplatMan_DK]

"The record confirms that most Chrome users understand this routine data collection and are fine with it."


No, they fucking are NOT fine with it. In fact, part of what makes the world shitty today is that it really is not possible to keep Google from knowing everything about you.


"Instead, a determination of what a 'reasonable' user would have understood must take into account the level of sophistication attributable to the general public, which uses Google’s services,"


Any user of the internet, reasonable or otherwise, should know the following: Google knows the layout of your home. The know where your kids go to school. They know where their bedroom is. They know who their friends are. They know what their hobbies are. They know whether or not you are armed. They know where you keep your pot. They know how many and which pets you have. They know what your favorite fucking soup is. They know EVERYTHING about you and your life.

And you should be aware they will sell this information to absolutely ANYONE that has cash in hand. Anyone.

"Yeah, but I got nothin' to hide, so what do I care?"



(/s in case that wasn't obvious)

 

[Casual_Indifference]

You'll get as much money from that class action as a famous rapper. And by that I mean, "About 50 Cents".

Looking forward to my $0.50 Google Play Store credit

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Looking forward to my $0.50 Google Play Store credit

Of course the result of such a class action won't make anyone "whole" after... but really the point is to hurt them as much as possible. For that to work, they can't be allowed to make that payment a "store credit". That should never have been a tenable option to a court room. Actual money, in the form of a check, mailed out to everyone. That will actually hurt them enough they might reconsider their policies, and it's that, the prevention of future harm, that such a lawsuit is all about. The key is that the cost has to actually be high enough to not just feel like a licensing fee to them.

 

[Matthew J.]

This is a great start, but it would be nice if we could get some kind of legal recognition that a "reasonable user" would generally find unrestrained collection of personal data while browsing purportedly innocuous websites without explicit consent objectionable.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

This is a great start, but it would be nice if we could get some kind of legal recognition that a "reasonable user" would generally find unrestrained collection of personal data while browsing purportedly innocuous websites without explicit consent objectionable.

"Why do old people care about this thing called "privacy" so much? They're just jealous they didn't get all the likes my baby photos got when I was little! What's so weird about having the most humiliating moments of your childhood recorded and uploaded for the whole world to see?"

I do NOT envy children today. Frankly, I think kids should have a basic right to privacy growing up and parents need to really think twice about sharing all these videos of their kids being caught lying about swiping cookies or whatever. That honestly sounds completely humiliating on a scale I can't even comprehend.