Mass lawsuit against Google over data collection thrown out

The ‘Google You Owe Us' mass legal action against the internet giant over its data collection practices has been thrown out in a judgement today.

The legal action claimed that Google surreptitiously bypassed privacy settings on Apple's iPhone smartphone between August 2011 and February 2012, enabling it to collect the personal details of an estimated 4.4 million iPhone users in the UK.

That information, the group claims, includes ethnic origin, mental and physical health, finances, political affiliations and opinions, social class and even sexuality and sexual interests.

People within those groups were then categorised in multiple different ways and the information used to push marketing and advertising at them, according to the group's legal counsel, Hugh Tomlinson QC.

According to The Guardian, Tomlinson said the data was gathered through "clandestine tracking and collation" of information relating to internet usage on iPhone users' Safari browser - known as the "Safari workaround".

The secret tracking and information collection conducted by Google was only stopped when it was exposed by a security researcher, and Google has paid out $39.5 million to settle claims in the US.

However, Google claimed that the sensitive information that it gleaned from its data collection activities of iPhone users was not disclosed to third parties, and argued that it would not be possible to identify anyone who may have been affected by its secret data collection.

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