ExtraTorrent | Google Sued by iPhone users in UK

[Atreides]

The tech giant has lost its high court bid to block a breach of privacy case started in the United Kingdom by Internet users. It will now move further in Britain, with a group of over 100 people suing Google for misusing private data, breaching confidence and the 1998 Data Protection Act.

The company claimed that it will appeal court decision on the basis that the legal action itself doesn’t meet the standards required to be brought to the court. Google had applied for a declaration that the legal case fails to meet the criteria to be heard by the court, which relate to a “hack†used by Google on Apple’s Safari browser to install advertising cookies. But London’s high court ruled that the British courts were the appropriate jurisdiction to try these claims.

The group of activists accused the tech giant of invading their privacy after bypassing security settings to track their online behavior and target them with personalized ads. They announced that they wanted to know how the company came to ignore user preferences to track people online and how they got around Apple’s program settings. At the time Google claimed it was accidental, but it is hard to imagine accidentally interfering with someone else’s program.

The UK court rebuffed Google’s argument that such data wasn’t private because it was anonymous. Apparently, Google wouldn’t collect and collate data unless doing so enabled the company to produce something of value. Last month the activists called Google immoral for arguing that UK people should bring lawsuit in California, where Google is based, rather than the UK.

It is known that in the United States, Google has already paid over $22 million fine to the FTC and $17 million more to a number of American states for the breach. The problem is that Safari users’ online activity could be tracked even if the browser settings said it shouldn’t be.

In response, Google pointed out that a case almost identical to this one was dismissed in its entirety 3 months ago in the United States. The case in question was struck down on the basis that the plaintiff there failed to prove harm or show a loss of money or property. Unfortunately, the United States lacks an equivalent of the British Data Protection Act or other relevant legislation asserted in the British case

[Psycho]

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