Google Sued Over Privacy Rights

Google’s new privacy policy is evoking an expected whirlwind of opinions and debate, as well as two unexpected class action consumer fraud lawsuits that claim the company’s new policy is leading it to store and aggregate user information.

According to Law360 (subscription required), the consumer fraud lawsuits filed in New York and California federal court allege that Google combined customers’ data together with Gmail, YouTube, and Google Plus, without their consent.

The plaintiffs claim that Google’s new privacy policy that went into effect March 1 does not allow consumers to keep data from different services separate, yet it still requires users to set their privacy settings for each service separately. They also allege that Google changed its privacy policy to compete with other social networking websites for revenue from advertising.

The consumer fraud lawsuit claims Google violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and other U.S. and state laws.

These lawsuits are only the latest litigation facing Google. The company is currently involved in litigation over violations of privacy on its tracking software on the Apple-owned Safari browser.

If you had your online privacy rights violated, contact Sokolove Law for a free legal consultation.