Google to Pay $314 Million in Damages

A California court has ordered Google to pay $314 million in a class action lawsuit filed back in 2019. A court in California, USA, has ordered Google to pay $314 million in a class action lawsuit filed back in 2019. On July 1, 2025, the jury sided with the plaintiffs, finding the company liable for passive data transfers and user expenses.
The court complaint alleged that Android devices transmitted data to Google without users' consent, even in standby mode, using the mobile network. The plaintiffs claimed that the company could have configured the transmission of information to occur only via Wi-Fi, but Google deliberately chose a strategy that incurred mobile traffic costs for users.
It was found that a standard Android smartphone sent and received an average of up to 8.88 MB of data per day, and 94% of that data went to Google. Often these were log files that did not require immediate transmission.
The court complaint also cites another study: in 2018, it was recorded that an Android device with the Chrome browser open in the background made up to 900 passive data transmissions in 24 hours. By comparison, an iPhone with Safari running in the background sent significantly less information.
Google announced its intention to appeal the court ruling, citing user agreement terms, and stated that the data transmissions were related to “services that are critical to the security, performance, and reliability of Android devices.”