Google ‘Incognito’ customers lose enchantment to sue for damages as class

Plaintiffs sued Google in 2020, claiming that Google continued to gather information from customers regardless of their use of private-browsing in Chrome’s “Incognito” mode. The lawsuit seeks at the least $5 billion in damages.

The ninth U.S. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals in San Francisco on Wednesday rejected the plaintiffs’ bid to enchantment a decrease court docket determination final yr that denied class motion standing for cash damages claims towards Google.

The plaintiffs had sought an appeals court docket listening to on the difficulty mid-case and may nonetheless search to revive their cash damages claims when there’s a closing judgment. A jury trial is about for November.

Class-action standing would imply the plaintiffs may pursue large-scale claims towards Google as a gaggle, versus submitting particular person claims for financial damages. The damages class would come with at the least “tens of thousands and thousands” of Google browser customers, court docket filings point out.

The plaintiffs, whose legal professionals embody veteran litigator David Boies of Boies Schiller Flexner, had argued within the ninth Circuit that the decrease court docket ruling in December denying class certification on damages “sounds the ‘loss of life knell’ for a lot of customers’ damages claims who lack the means to individually litigate this case.”

Google’s attorneys at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan had requested the ninth Circuit to not enable the speedy enchantment and as a substitute wait to listen to from the events after a closing order.

Google has denied that it deceived anybody over private-browsing, saying its Chrome browser customers consented to the corporate’s information assortment.

A spokesperson for Google declined to touch upon Wednesday’s determination.

Though the choice means the plaintiffs can not search cash damages as a category, the decrease court docket had licensed two different courses that may search different reduction from Google, together with curbing sure information assortment practices.

Boies and one other plaintiffs’ lawyer didn’t instantly reply to a message on Thursday in search of remark.

The case is Brown et al v. Google LLC, ninth U.S. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals, No. 22-80147.

For plaintiffs: David Boies and Mark Mao of Boies Schiller Flexner; Invoice Carmody of Susman Godfrey; and John Yanchunis of Morgan & Morgan

For defendant: Andrew Schapiro, Diane Doolittle and Stephen Broome of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan