Google, which is owned tech giant Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL), is required to face a dismissed class action lawsuit by Google Chrome users after U.S. appeals court decided to revive the case.
The suit was brought against Google for allegedly collecting Chrome users' personal information without their permission after deciding to not synchronize their browsers with their Google accounts, Reuters reported. The proposed class covers Chrome users since July 27, 2016.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the lower court judge who dismissed the suit should have assessed whether Chrome users consented to allow Google to collect their data as they browsed online.
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Tuesday's 3-0 decision comes after Google agreed last year to destroy billions of records to settle a suit claiming Google tracked people who thought they were browsing privately, even users browsing in Chrome's "Incognito" mode.
Google did not immediately respond to Benzinga's request for comment.
The lower court judge concluded Google's general privacy policy allowing data collection governed because the company would have collected the plaintiffs' information regardless of which browsers they used.
But Circuit Judge Milan Smith called that focus misplaced in Tuesday's decision.
"Here, Google had a general privacy disclosure yet promoted Chrome by suggesting that certain information would not be sent to Google unless a user turned on sync," Smith wrote. "A reasonable user would not necessarily understand that they were consenting to the data collection at issue."
The appeals court returned the case to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, who dismissed it in December 2022.
Price Action: Alphabet gained 0.33% to close at $168.96 on Tuesday, while exchange-traded funds that track the stock trended downward for the most part.
T-Rex 2X Long Alphabet Daily Target ETF (BATS:GOOX) rose 0.73%
Vanguard Communication Services ETF (NYSE:VOX) slipped 0.04%
Communication Services Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLC) declined 0.07%
IShares Global Comm Services ETF (NYSE:IXP) went down 0.06%
Fidelity MSCI Communication Services Index ETF (NYSE:FCOM) dipped 0.15%
在美國上訴法院決定恢復該案後，科技巨頭Alphabet Inc.（納斯達克股票代碼：GOOG）（納斯達克股票代碼：GOOG）旗下的谷歌被要求面臨谷歌瀏覽器用戶駁回的集體訴訟。
路透社報道，該訴訟是針對谷歌的，原因是谷歌在決定不將瀏覽器與谷歌帳戶同步後，涉嫌在未經Chrome用戶許可的情況下收集他們的個人信息。擬議的課程涵蓋自2016年7月27日以來的Chrome用戶。
舊金山第九巡迴上訴法院表示，駁回訴訟的下級法院法官本應評估Chrome用戶是否同意允許谷歌在網上瀏覽時收集數據。
另請閱讀：谷歌母公司Alphabet是這位分析師2024年的首選大盤股：原因如下
週二的3-0決定是在谷歌去年同意銷燬數十億條記錄以解決一項訴訟之後作出的，該訴訟聲稱谷歌追蹤了那些認爲自己在私下瀏覽的人，甚至是使用Chrome的 「隱身」 模式瀏覽的用戶。
谷歌沒有立即回應本辛加的置評請求。
下級法院法官得出結論，谷歌允許收集數據的一般隱私政策受其管轄，因爲無論原告使用哪種瀏覽器，該公司都會收集他們的信息。
但是巡迴法官米蘭·史密斯在週二的裁決中稱這一重點是錯誤的。
史密斯寫道：「谷歌在這裏披露了一般的隱私信息，但卻對Chrome進行了宣傳，暗示除非用戶開啓同步功能，否則某些信息不會發送給谷歌。」「理智的用戶不一定會明白他們同意有爭議的數據收集。」
上訴法院將此案退回加利福尼亞州奧克蘭的美國地方法院法官伊馮娜·岡薩雷斯·羅傑斯，後者於2022年12月駁回了該案。
價格走勢：週二，Alphabet上漲0.33％，收於168.96美元，而追蹤該股的交易所交易基金大部分呈下跌趨勢。
T-rex 2X Long Alphabet每日目標ETF（BATS: GOOX）上漲0.73％
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通信服務精選行業SPDR基金（紐約證券交易所代碼：XLC）下跌0.07％
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