Google is facing a potentially serious legal threat in the UK, as irate Brits who feel that the search giant has been illegally tracking them have formed a protest group, and enlisted a law firm to take matters to court.
In August last year Google was whacked with a whopping $22.5 million (around £14.3m) fine, after the Federal Trade Commission ruled that Google had placed a tracking cookie on devices using Apple's Safari browser, despite having assured customers that Safari's handling of third-party cookies would mean they were automatically opted out of the tracking.
The cookies were used to serve up adverts, which is how Google makes a lot of its money. UK law firm Olswang says its clients are looking for "damages, disclosure and an apology" from the big G.
The protest group, snappily dubbed 'Safari Users Against Google's Secret Tracking', says on its Facebook page that it was set up "for anyone who used the Safari Internet browser between September 2011 and February 2012, and who was illegally tracked by Google". As you can imagine, that's potentially rather a larger number of claimants.
One person has issued proceedings so far -- Judith Vidal-Hall stated, "Whether something is private or not should be up to the Internet surfer, not Google."
It's hard to know what the group's chances of securing compensation from Google are, though. I suspect we'll have to wait and see. Last year Google was criticised by the EU justice commissioner over changes to its privacy policy.
Does Google's online tracking make you nervous, or do you trust the search tycoon to handle your data responsibly? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook wall.
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Meleagru 28 January, 2013 18:25
I think Google already made more money than they are claiming through their suit.
anonymous 29 January, 2013 17:40
This is just another example of how Google is an insidious, sinister and untrustworthy corporation.
Their quest to gather personal data and information on individuals knows no bounds and they have absolutely no respect for anybody's rights.
Governments need to clamp down on them hard.
anonymous 20 February, 2013 05:01
I dont think everyone realy cares. you only have to look at what people post on facebook to find out nearly anything you want to know about people.... like where they live, where they go each day, their daily habits (for instance, if they smoke weed) you can see inside their homes, find out who their friends are, what kind of cars they drive & so on...
If i was a debt collector, facebook would be my tool of choice.