Google agreed to pay $68 million to settle claims that its voice assistant illegally spied on users to, among other things, deliver advertisements. Reuters report.
Google did not admit wrongdoing in settlement of the class-action case, which accused the company “Unlawfully and knowingly intercepting and recording confidential communications of persons without their consent and subsequently making unauthorized disclosure of those communications to third parties.” The lawsuit further claimed that “information obtained from these recordings was improperly transmitted to third parties for targeted advertising and other purposes.”
Case “centered on”Liar admits,” in which the Google Assistant is accused of activating and recording a user’s communications even if they did not intentionally prompt it to do so with a wake word. TechCrunch contacted Google for comment.
Americans have long suspected that their devices spy on them inappropriately. Those suspicions have, increasingly, given rise to claims of legal wrongdoing. In 2021, Apple Agreed to pay $95 million To settle claims its voice assistant, Siri, had recorded conversations with users without their prompting.
Like other tech giants, Google has faced other privacy-related litigation in recent years. Last year, the company agreed to pay $1.4 billion to the state of Texas to settle two lawsuits claiming the company had violated its data privacy laws.
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