cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/41122324
Google did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement of the class-action case, which accused the firm of “unlawful and intentional interception and recording of individuals’ confidential communications without their consent and subsequent unauthorized disclosure of those communications to third parties.”
NOT ENOUGH.
I was recently sitting with a bunch of workers in a welding shop where I was having some work done, and we were discussing a particular piece of unusual equipment with a very unusual variation. In other words, not something that would normally come up in a normal conversation.
One of the guys gets a notification, looks at his phone, and there is an ad for this weird piece of equipment that I’d never even heard of before. He gasped, and held his phone up for the rest to see. Apparently, this had happened before, and they’d all been discussing it. Now it happened again.
They’re spying on us every minute. I saw the proof that day.
Always the easy way out, littery a drop in the ocean, with zero actual consequences, these companies drink champagne and celebrate every time they receive this kind of a verdict
So Apple paid for the same thing a couple of years ago, and Google pays for it now. Two of the biggest “phone/os” companies do spy on people and now it’s a confirmed fact.
All these companies are spying on you. You cannot convince me otherwise. Too many suspect conversations have led to targeted ads and the like that make no sense UNLESS they’re always listening.
This settlement pretty much confirms it for me. If they did nothing wrong, why didn’t they go all the way with it to prove these devices are not spying on you?
First time in years going to the optometrist. Next morning after making the appointment, I have glass advertising on my phone. Fuuuuccckkkk these guys!
Google really needs to be shut down.
Currently in the process of migrating out of their system now. I’ll keep my account and gmail addresses for rubbish and using Earth or Maps when necessary but I’ve moved all the important stuff to Proton and I’ve stopped using Chrome.
I was originally part of this class-action. When the lawyers decided to settle I refused to accept the settlement, purely because Google admitted no fault and also required us to agree that we couldn’t ever sue over the issue again in the future even if new evidence came to light. The dollar amount they offered wasn’t tiny (it wasn’t large by any means either), but I felt it was in no way a valid amount for what was being claimed. Not to mention the lawyers were taking close to or maybe more than half of the settlement money, which I find offensive considering they decided to settle the case and allow Google to wash their hands of the matter. Luckily I reserved my right to sue again in the future, but I’d either have to go at it alone or try to form a new class-action suite. I’m still incredibly disappointed that the lawyers handling the case backed down and took the settlement, I would have rather lost the case and discovered the truth than take a pittance and let Google off.
Edit: I almost forgot, the most aggregious requirement to the settlement was the non-disclosure agreement that you had to accept which meant you couldn’t say anything at all about the settlement or the case if you took the money. It also appeared to me that they were trying to apply the non-disclosure even if you didn’t take the settlement, which I don’t know how you can be held to a NDA if you haven’t signed and accepted the NDA. The whole thing smelled of bullshit to me.
One would almost start to think the lawyers were out for the settlement money…
Oh, come on, not all lawyers are vultures who exploit the law for their own financial gain. Some of them are retired, or dead.
It was definitely the path that required the least amount of effort from them and they happily pocketed near 50% of the settlement.
It’s a shameless plutocracy at this point. The mask is off, no one is pretending to follow the rules.
Deleted replied to the wrong comment.
Settlements should not be allowed in cases where its companies versus people.
They should be a de jure admission of guilt, is what they should be
Yeah, why settle? They should stop spying on us and we all know that.
You’d rather have them drag it out in court until the person can’t afford to fight the case?
I think we would all prefer if the US would stop pretending the 6th amendment didn’t exist and if trials could be carried out without endless delays.
The sixth amendment is for criminal cases.
Settlements only happen with the consent of both parties. I don’t see that as a problem. If you really don’t want a settlement, then opt out of the class action and bring your own case or do what you can to make sure the lawyer for the class action won’t settle. That I suppose is unlikely, as the lawyer will do whatever ends up being the most likely win case scenario in their opinion and the number of people in the class action will probably mean you have no individual say in it (not sure how that particular piece works but no class action suit that approached me gave me any options for what I wanted out of it).
As far as I’m aware the lawyers didn’t consult with the class-action members, or at the very least I was never asked if we should accept the settlement or not, the lawyers just accepted. Alternatively you could opt out of the settlement if you wanted, which is what I chose to do, mostly because the settlement amount was far too low, in my opinion, and they required signing and accepting an NDA which I was not willing to do.
I don’t think it should be acceptable to buy your way out of a court case which reveals truth and justice.
But are you sure you don’t want to opt out and go 1v1 vs a trillion dollar company???
It is kinda problematic that it matters how deep pockets of both parties are in court, isn’t it? This system does not seem fair to me, unless fair means “the biggest guy always wins”. Ahhh the American dream, how amazing…
Not kinda, it is problematic.
These are civil cases, buying your way out is all that happens in the best of circumstances in a civil case. It is just a matter of how much you have to pay to buy out. Punitive damages might do some extra justice, but what would that be? In the end you have to imagine that some radom person has sued you unjustly and decide how you want an innocent person to be treated, or perhaps they sued you with some small real point to their lawsuit, do you want the default to be that you are ruined? Maybe you didn’t intend harm, but want to either make amends or at least get past the lawsuit so you can get on with your life, do you want no recourse possible?
In the end, if Google was forced out of business, many(most) of us would be way worse off. That is not the ideal outcome. Ideally, the case brings enough money to the plaintiff to right any hardship caused and, in the case of punitive damages, does just enough hardship to the defendant that they are dissuaded from pursuing that course of action, but you aren’t trying to kill them.
That’s the entire point of a civil case, money exchanging to pay for damages. If the plaintiffs are happy then fuck it, they wanted money and now they have it
And how do you think the claimants would feel about that? If we had a functioning justice system we wouldn’t have to.
68M won’t do shit but give a slap on the wrist. Make the amount in the billions and they’ll learn.
Make it more than they earned, plus a large percentage, and factor in how likely they were to get caught. At the size of Google, companies are essentially just big statistics machines, doing risk/reward calculations. Imagine you have an illegal business opportunity that could make you $100M in profit per week. Your risk of getting caught is estimated at ~25% per week. And your fine for getting caught is $150M per week. Even though the fine is higher than the expected profit, your net profit per week averages out to +$62.5M.
That is the original $100M, minus the $150M*25% (or $37.5M total). Yes, some weeks will be a loss. But if the numbers stay consistent, you’ll make more in the long term simply due to the fact that you don’t get caught every time. As long as you manage to avoid getting caught for at least two weeks, (which shouldn’t be difficult, considering the 25% estimated chance of regulators catching on) you’ve already made enough money to cover the fine.
Of course the company will do the illegal thing, because the math says it will likely be profitable. And even if they’re caught, it was just the price of doing business. As long as they made more than the expected fine over the given time period, they have profited.
They had to pay pennies while hoarding in a huge profit. Well, that will teach them!
Oh, yeah. That $3.07 settlement covers the damages with a little to spare. Now I can put a down-payment on some French fries.
It’s less about making you whole and more about hurting the corporation. Although that’s a drop in the bucket for Alphabet. “Cost of doing business”.
Sounds like neither
It’s less like “hurting” the corporation, and more like the government &/or legal system claiming their share in the proceeds of the crime… essentially racketeering.
I mean, really, you probably have $0 worth of damages to worry about. If something in particular happens, like corporate espionage hurting your business that causes real damage, then you have the freedom to sue for that particular thing. (Supposing you aren’t locked out by the settlement.)
Per user?
That would be a fitting fine, wouldn’t it?
Google did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement of the class-action case
A settlement is an admission no matter what Google says. Headline should read, “Google Admits To Using Its Consumer Hardware To Spy On Users.”
I wonder why these companies wouldn’t want to go to discovery and further with such cases. Surely to have a clear, clean name they’d take these to the end showing they were not liable. It’s a read between the lines scenario, they’re afraid of discovery for some reason so don’t want it to happen.
It’s always not an admission. Sometimes it’s more expensive to win a case than to pay out.
Not saying that’s what happened here, but a settlement doesn’t always mean the one who settled is at fault.
Google doesn’t care about that kind of money, they care about the discovery process.
A settlement is an admission
I mean it’s an “admission” that it would cost more money to fight in court than it would to make it go away. Or that they would likely lose, regardless of whether they’re guilty of anything. Other than that, no.
68 million is probably a rounding error in their yearly lawyer budget alone.
Buying themselves free, how convenient.
In the past gods absolved kings. Nowadays money absolves capitalists. Very convenient indeed.
The “In God We Trust” bit on our money leaves out that money is God now.
Free of what, exactly?
