Google will have to answer to court over allegations that it collected users' private information within its Chrome browser without their permission following a new ruling.
A U.S. federal appeals court reversed A previous dismissal of the Calhoun v. Google LLC case on the grounds that the lower court should have assessed “whether a reasonable user reading [Google’s privacy disclosures would think that he or she was consenting to the data collection].
By The edgeAt the heart of the case is an allegation that Google collected data from Chrome users without enabling Chrome Sync, a feature designed to synchronize bookmarks, passwords and tabs across multiple Chrome clients.
Google returns to court to appeal
The plaintiffs in the case claim that Chrome sent Google their browsing history, IP addresses, and identifying cookies without their consent. This claim was previously dismissed on the basis that Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers noted that this conduct was set out in Chrome's privacy policy and found that users' continued use of the browser was sufficient to establish agreement with that policy.
However, on appealJudge Milan D. Smith Jr. wrote that users may not have understood these disclosures because of conflicting information provided by Google.
“Google had a general privacy statement, but promoted Chrome by suggesting that certain information would not be sent to Google unless a user turned on syncing.”
Naturally, Google is not happy about this, and a company spokesperson said: The edge who intends to fight the case. And in the middle of all this is the announcement that Passwords will soon sync between Chrome for Android and desktop clients without Chrome Syncas long as users log into the browser with their Google account.
So data is still synced to a Google account without express permission being given through Chrome Sync, but at least it's password-only and a presumably optional measure designed to be convenient for users. It's not a completely new feature either, as the change has been made arrived on iOS in November 2023
