A federal judge in California on Friday refused to unravel a landmark privacy verdict against Google, preserving a $425 million jury award for millions of users — while also rejecting a sweeping bid to force the tech giant to surrender an additional $2.36 billion in alleged profits in what has been dubbed the Google $2B owed suit.
U.S. Chief Judge Richard Seeborg denied dueling post-trial motions, leaving intact a September verdict that found Google unlawfully gathered data from roughly 98 million cellphone users who had expressly opted out of tracking tied to app activity.
At the same time, the court declined to order Google to disgorge billions more or impose a permanent injunction restricting its practices.
Court Rejects Google’s Bid to Decertify Class
Google had asked the court to decertify the class and vacate the verdict, arguing that privacy expectations vary user by user and cannot be resolved collectively.
Judge Seeborg was not persuaded.
He wrote that Google’s position “rests on a misapprehension” of the plaintiffs’ theory — one he said was shaped from “a few stray comments made by a single witness.”
“The core of plaintiffs’ theory is and always has been that Google’s decision to collect certain data after it said it would not was inherently offensive,” Seeborg said, adding that the issue was “perfectly susceptible to collective proof.”
The case centers on Google’s “supplemental Web & App Activity,” or sWAA, setting related to third-party app usage. Plaintiffs Anibal Rodriguez, Julian Santiago and Susan Lynn Harvey represent nationwide classes of device users who turned off that feature between July 2016 and September 2024.
In September 2025, a San Francisco jury concluded that Google unlawfully saved and used data from third-party apps despite users opting out. The panel awarded more than $425 million in damages but declined to grant punitive damages or require disgorgement of profits.
