Google defeats bid for billions of dollars of new penalties in US privacy class action

By Mike Scarcella

Jan 30 (Reuters) – Alphabet’s Google persuaded a federal judge in San Francisco on Friday to reject a bid by consumers for more than $2 billion in penalties ​over the company’s past collection of data from users who had switched off a key ‌privacy setting.

Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg denied the request to order Google to disgorge $2.36 billion in alleged profits and to ‌stop certain ad-related data practices.

Google had urged Seeborg not to add the penalty to a jury’s verdict in September that found the company liable for secretly collecting app activity data from millions of users who had disabled a tracking feature.

The jury in September awarded about $425 million in damages to the class action ⁠plaintiffs — far below the $31 billion they ‌sought — and issued an advisory verdict that disgorgement was unwarranted.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. David Boies, a lead attorney for the…