A recent jury verdict in San Jose ordered Google to pay $314.6 million to Android users for misusing their cell phone data.
Multiple news sources reported that a California Superior Court jury found Google liable for transferring data to its servers without user consent while devices were idle. This data collection was used to benefit Google, including for targeted advertising and mapping.
Google announced it plans to appeal the verdict, stating it misunderstands services critical to Android's security and reliability.
The verdict in the civil case stems from a class-action lawsuit alleging that Google programmed Android phones to transfer data to Google servers over cellular networks, even when users weren't connected to Wi-Fi.
This data collection, according to the lawsuit, was done to further Google's corporate interests. The case is one of several recent legal challenges to Google's data privacy practices.
The jury agreed with the plaintiffs that Alphabet's Google was liable for sending and receiving information from the devices without permission while they were idle, causing what the lawsuit had called "mandatory and unavoidable burdens shouldered by Android device users for Google's benefit."
The plaintiffs filed the class action in state court in 2019 on behalf of an estimated 14 million Californians. They argued that Google collected information from idle phones running its Android operating system for company uses like targeted advertising, consuming Android users' cellular data at their expense.
Google told the court that no Android users were harmed by the data transfers and that users consented to them in the company's terms of service and privacy policies.
Another group filed a separate lawsuit in federal court in San Jose, bringing the same claims against Google on behalf of Android users in the other 49 states. That case is scheduled for trial in April 2026.
So if I’m correct and do that math, Google owes the 14 million people affected over a million dollars? 314 million. Class action. The persons who responded to participate should be paid equal parts. Who’s getting the 300 million? I hate this planet
And answer your questions to who gets the money generally class action lawsuits are set up so that the attorneys get to deduct all of their “” expenses” then take that number multiplied by anywhere from 33 to 45% as to what the lawyers told the class action claimants they would need next line are they named class action person cause everyone of these has to have at least one person and that person gets a piece of the pie generally between six and 10%. The remaining funds then are usually set up in a class recovery section where everyone similarly situated who can prove that they are part of the group that were offended by Google activities specifical being a initial show in their bills that the Research collection Bite Google cost X number of dollars are then able to apply to this general group often run by an administrator. That administrator also has fees to go into this before the first dollars paid, and eventually the individuals who can prove by documentation that Google took from them will get a very small piece of the action and something of this size my guess is that they’ll be less than $1 million to split among their remaining class, action claimants.