Google fights class action over users’ data collection

Google is fighting a class action in San Jose federal court that says the company violates the rights of its users by secretly collecting and selling their personal information.

The complaint says Google LLC, while selling advertising space in its proprietary auction process, shares personal information it has promised not to disclose.

Lesley E. Weaver, a partner with Oakland based Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP, wrote in the complaint, "Google actively sells and shares consumers' personal information with thousands of entities, ranging from advertisers to publishers to hedge funds to political campaigns and even to the government."

Google allows companies and other entities to collect information about consumers when they offer "real-time bidding," in which the winner gets to send an advertisement to a specific individual, Weaver wrote.

While only one company, or government agency, wins the bidding competition, all of the participants in the auction get access to information about individuals' location, age, gender, race, sexual orientation and browsing history, Weaver argues in the class action.

Google promises it will never sell any personal information to third parties and that consumers will decide how their information is used, the complaint states. The Mountain View-based technology giant owned by Alphabet Inc. also pledges it will not use certain sensitive information for advertising purposes, the complaint states.

"Google breaks these promises billions of times every day," wrote Weaver, colead counsel in the case. Hewitt et al. v. Google LLC, 21-CV-02155 (N.D. Cal., filed March 26, 2021).

José Castañeda, a Google spokesman, flatly denied the central allegations in the class action in a statement Thursday.

"Privacy and transparency are core to how our ads services work. We never sell people's personal information and we have strict policies specifically prohibiting personalized ads based on sensitive categories," Castañeda wrote.

Weaver, in an email on Thursday, stated, "The Hewitt complaint, filed in March based on our expert testing and proprietary analysis, is the first privacy action in the country to directly challenge Google's claim that it 'does not sell or share personal information.'"

Last week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen of San Jose held a discovery conference on the case along with two related class actions against Google. The class action has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh of San Jose.

Google is represented by Cooley LLP in the Hewitt class action, with Jeffrey M. Gutkin and Michael G. Rhodes as the lead partners.

Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP filed a similar class action against Google on Wednesday. Delahunty et al. v. Google LLC, 21-CV03360 (N.D. Cal., filed May 5, 2021).

Brian Danitz, a partner at the powerhouse plaintiffs' firm, said in an email that Cotchett plans to file a motion to relate the cases in a few days.

The lawsuit is the latest in a series of privacy and antitrust complaints against Google by consumers and governments across the world.

The Hewitt class action accuses Google of breach of contract, violations of California's Unfair Competition Law, invasion of privacy in violation of the California Constitution, intrusion, publication of private information, breach of confidence and other claims.

It seeks compensatory, statutory and punitive damages, as well as an injunction barring Google and its employees from sharing or selling any existing account holder's personal information without express authorization of its sale.

"Judge Koh has already put this case on the same fast track as the other privacy matters we are litigating against Google in front of her and we hope that nothing derails their progress," wrote Jay Barnes, an attorney with Simmons Hanly Conroy LLC in New York who is Weaver's co-counsel in the Hewitt class action.