It is one of the most entrenched fears in the era of smart homes and always-connected smartphones: the suspicion that our devices listen to us even when they shouldn’t, capturing private conversations in order to translate them into targeted advertisements.
This fear, which can technically be dismissed as technological paranoia, has gained new momentum following what happened in the California courtrooms.
Google has in fact agreed to pay the amount of $68 million to settle a class action accusing the tech giant of violating users’ privacy through its voice assistant, Google Assistant.
Google pays but denies that Assistant listened secretly
The preliminary agreement, filed Friday evening with the federal court in San Jose, now awaits the formal approval of District Judge Beth Labson Freeman.
Although the company has not admitted any legal liability, the decision to settle underscores the willingness to quickly close a potentially damaging chapter for the brand’s reputation and for Alphabet’s coffers.
As the court documents show, the choice to pay $68 million was driven by the need to avoid risks, the exorbitant costs, and the inherent uncertainty of a lengthy federal process.
The settlement covers a broad range of American consumers, including anyone who purchased Google devices or was subjected to these erroneous activations starting May 18, 2016.
However, a sizable portion of the settlement fund will not go directly to users: the plaintiffs’ lawyers have the option to request up to a third of the total sum, i.e., about $22.7 million, to cover legal fees incurred during the legal battle.
A sector under close scrutiny
The Google case sits within a broader context of trust issues and legal disputes involving the world’s largest tech companies. Consumers are increasingly wary about how their home privacy is managed.
Only in December 2024, a month before this agreement, Apple had reached a similar agreement, agreeing to pay $95 million to settle a case involving its voice assistant Siri, also accused of recording conversations without an explicit user command.
These episodes illustrate how the data collection practices of Big Tech companies are constantly under the spotlight.
Besides issues related to voice assistants, Google faced other significant privacy challenges: last year, the company agreed to pay a staggering $1.4 billion to the state of Texas to resolve two lawsuits related to violations of biometric and personal data privacy laws.
The sum of $68 million, therefore, appears as a smaller piece in a much more complex mosaic, where the convenience of digital assistance continues to clash with the fundamental right to privacy.
