Google ‘Incognito’ users lose appeal to sue for damages as class

Consumers suing Alphabet Inc’s Google LLC over its information assortment practices have misplaced their early attraction to pursue cash damages as a category motion searching for billions of {dollars}.

Plaintiffs sued Google in 2020, claiming that Google continued to gather information from customers regardless of their use of private-browsing in Chrome’s “Incognito” mode. The lawsuit seeks no less than $5 billion in damages.

The ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Wednesday rejected the plaintiffs’ bid to attraction a decrease courtroom determination final 12 months that denied class motion standing for cash damages claims towards Google.

The plaintiffs had sought an appeals courtroom listening to on the problem mid-case and might nonetheless search to revive their cash damages claims when there’s a remaining judgment. A jury trial is ready for November.

Class-action standing would imply the plaintiffs may pursue large-scale claims towards Google as a bunch, versus submitting particular person claims for financial damages. The damages class would come with no less than “tens of millions” of Google browser customers, courtroom filings point out.

The plaintiffs, whose attorneys embrace veteran litigator David Boies of Boies Schiller Flexner, had argued within the ninth Circuit that the decrease courtroom ruling in December denying class certification on damages “sounds the ‘death knell’ for many users’ damages claims who lack the means to individually litigate this case.”

Google’s attorneys at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan had requested the ninth Circuit to not enable the fast attraction and as an alternative wait to listen to from the events after a remaining order. Google has denied that it deceived anybody over private-browsing, saying its Chrome browser customers consented to the corporate’s information assortment.

A spokesperson for Google declined to touch upon Wednesday’s determination.

Although the choice means the plaintiffs can not search cash damages as a category, the decrease courtroom had licensed two different courses that may search different reduction from Google, together with curbing sure information assortment practices.

Boies and one other plaintiffs’ lawyer didn’t instantly reply to a message on Thursday searching for remark.

The case is Brown et al v. Google LLC, ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 22-80147.

For plaintiffs: David Boies and Mark Mao of Boies Schiller Flexner; Bill Carmody of Susman Godfrey; and John Yanchunis of Morgan & Morgan

For defendant: Andrew Schapiro, Diane Doolittle and Stephen Broome of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan

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