UK High Court Blocks Billion-Dollar Privacy Lawsuit Against Google (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The High Court has blocked a bid to sue Google for allegedly unlawfully taking data from 4.4 million UK iPhone users. The legal case was mounted by a group called Google You Owe Us, led by former Which director Richard Lloyd. It sought compensation for people whose handsets were tracked by Google for several months in 2011 and 2012. Mr Lloyd said he was "disappointed" by the ruling and his group would appeal, but Google said it was "pleased" and thought the case was "without merit."

Mr Justice Warby who oversaw the case explained that it was blocked because the claims that people suffered damage were not supported by the facts advanced by the campaign group. Another reason for blocking it, he said, was the impossibility of reliably calculating the number of iPhone users affected by the alleged privacy breach. The complaint made by Google You Owe Us alleged that the cookies were used by Google to track people and get around settings on Apple's Safari browser that blocked such monitoring. Ads were sold on the basis of the personal information gathered by Google's cookies. The Safari workaround was used by Google on lots of different devices but the UK case centered on iPhone users. The group hoped to win $1.3 billion in compensation for affected users.

Comments

Re: Billion dollars?

[Anonymous Coward]

both

Billion POUND lawsuit, please.

[whoever57]

That's £ibn to you.

Dollars and pounds may be changeable, but they are not directly interchangeable.

nothing to worry about

[astrofurter]

Because Big Brother Google loves us all.

Interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

...SO you can get away with flagrantly breaking the law so long as your victims can't show harm.

Very good to know.

Re:Interesting...

[TRRosen]

No breaking the law is a criminal issue. This is civil court. there must be some damage that can be fixed.

Re:Billion dollars?

[AHuxley]

Its still the users computer and they had settings to stop that tracking.
Should an ad company get to work its way in to a users computer?

Re: Billion dollars?

[christopherrto]

That's $318 per person, which might half with legal fees. That's pretty reasonable for stealing data.

So?

[hcs_$reboot]

This is called the legal system, where laws are to be observed. I don't like Google taking/using private data, but otoh, if the "Group" couldn't make their stance clear in court and win, that's not the court fault. Hope they get better prepared for the appeal.

Re:So?

[AmiMoJo]

In this case the law is unsatisfactory. Consider the points on which the claim was rejected.

The accusers failed to demonstrate harm. I don't know the arguments used, but it is likely difficult to prove the tracking caused any kind of harm. Since there are no punitive damages in UK law, they can only claim for actual losses and thus it's very hard to prevent companies doing this kind of thing.

Secondly the judge said it was impossible to calculate the number of affected users. Again, this is because UK law doesn't seek to punish, only to put things right, so you can't just point to the fact that Google is very popular and that it's certain a large number of people were affected.

I don't think it's a good thing that people can get away with this stuff by creating enough uncertainty to make legal challenge impossible. Clearly something wrong was done here, Google aren't even denying it, yet there is no recourse.

Re:So?

[cascadingstylesheet]

Again, this is because UK law doesn't seek to punish, only to put things right,

Er, which is normally a point of boasting, no? Over us primitive punitive types who like to punish wrongdoing?

Re:So?

[squiggleslash]

but it is likely difficult to prove the tracking caused any kind of harm

Indeed. The problem here is that Google uses that tracking information to sell ads. It doesn't share it with third parties. It doesn't blackmail people using the data. It doesn't provide the information publicly so that serial killers can use it to profile potential victims. It. Just. Uses. It. To. Determine. What. Ads. To. Show. You.

Nor does it accidentally harm people with the data. Thus far we've never heard of a leak in Google's entire existence, or DoubleClick's before that, of the tracking data it uses to sell advertising. And that's not really surprising, as it's "Big Data" that's relatively difficult to link to individuals. Google+'s breach mentioned yesterday is a big deal because it's actual complex information about individual identifiable people, whereas Google's tracking data at best links Google accounts to a limited subset of "events" that could mean anything, that might suggest things, but not anything you'd want to base actions more than "This guy might want to buy socks, show him a sock ad" type decisions.

And that's something that's hard for many here to get their heads around, it's entirely possible to do something that could be abused but not actually, you know, abuse it.

What you're describing as a problem isn't. Google has almost certainly not harmed those it tracked. That's why it can't be proved that Google harmed them, not because it's getting off on a technicality, but because it didn't do anything.

There is a world of difference between a cluster of computers storing vague snippets of information and using that to determine ads to show you, and violating privacy, the latter of which requires, at minimum sharing that information, on a level that can identify you, with human beings other than the victim.

Re:So?

[radarskiy]

" if the "Group" couldn't make their stance clear in court "

The couldn't make their stance clear in court because they were not permitted into the court, not because their argument failed.

Re:So?

[TRRosen]

Punitive doesn't matter. you still must establish actual damages to claim punitive damages and those are usually limited to 2 or 3 times the actual damages.

Re:So?

[dcw3]

Thus far we've never heard of a leak in Google's entire existence

Yeah, only yesterday, right? https://www.bbc.com/news/techn...

Re:Billion dollars?

[stealth_finger]

Google collected data on them, and used that data to display ads.

So they saw ads for things that matched their interests, rather than ads for things that did not match their interests.

It is hard to see how that was damaging.

I think they were just trying to get started on saving for next years "new" model.

You're wrong.

[Viol8]

Laws are observed yes, but where the law is unclear it should be decided in due judicial process in a court, not thrown out beforehand by a judge just because in his personal opinion it doesn't have merit. I suspect he doesn't even fully understand the case since most legal types - especially judges who tend to be somewhat senior in age - are often technologically fairly clueless.

Re:You're wrong.

[JackieBrown]

If the law is unclear, then the law should be corrected. A judge should not get to arbitrarily change the law to give it meaning.

How would you feel if the judge made the law "clear" by ruling in Google's favor and setting a precedent for this type of behavior?

Re:You're wrong.

[dcw3]

While the odds are that you're correct, you might want to check your ageism. There are plenty of senior geeks...I started working on computers in the early 70s.

Re:You're wrong.

[Viol8]

So better the precedent is set by him throwing the case out before its even been heard? Right, ok, I'm sure you think your logic has argument....

Citizen slavery

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait is this different than someone pirating data or software, music or movies and then being sued by a giant company for anomalous or excessive amounts?

You took data that wasn't yours

Intangible Damages

[tomxor]

because the claims that people suffered damage were not supported by the facts advanced by the campaign group

Well of course... damage caused by violating certain human rights such as privacy tend to be intangible and not even possible to directly draw causal relationships between, just because you can't easily quantify it in monetary terms doesn't make it invalid or worthless.

Re: Billion dollars?

[parkinglot777]

That's $318 per person, which might half with legal fees. That's pretty reasonable for stealing data.

1 pound stering is roughly about $1.306 as of today. TFA said it is 1 billion pound stering and there are about 4.4 million people in the law suit. Then it should be around $297 per person. However, how many percentages the lawyers will get from a class action (after deduct all their fees) if they succeed the case? So $297 may turns into $50 or even less if you are lucky. That's why they (the group) want to pursue because there is a huge reward waiting for them in the end if they succeed.

Re:Billion dollars?

[TRRosen]

Civil law not criminal law. Civil law seeks to make things whole, that is, to correct the damage. Thus you have to establish there is damage the courts can correct. Criminal law handles punishment.

Law 101

[TRRosen]

This is one of the most basic concepts in civil law. In any situation you must be able to establish that you suffered some damage that the court can rectify. Note CIVIL LAW is not the place to punish corporations for bypassing regulations. That is the responsibility of the government under criminal law.

Re:Billion dollars?

[dcw3]

So you're okay with them finding a way to void the user's preferences? Sorry, if a user chooses not to be tracked, and there's a way around that, bug or otherwise, that request should be observed no matter what. And anyone doing otherwise should be liable.