You knew it was coming. The minute everyone started to catch on amidst all those Google “new privacy policy” banners that, hey, Google’s going to be tracking every move you make in the name of intuition and “service”, well, you knew a privacy lawsuit would be brewing somewhere.
And so it was.
The Google privacy policy lawsuit was filed in US District Court in Manhattan on behalf of all Google and Android users who signed up for any Google service (Google+, YouTube, Picasa, Gmail, Blogger to name a few) from August 19, 2004 to February 29, 2012 and continued to use a Google account on or after March 1, 2012 when the new Google privacy policy kicked in.
The plaintiffs in the Google lawsuit—David Nisenbaum, Pedro Marti and Allison C. Weiss—are alleging violation of the Computer Fraud Abuse Act, the Federal Wiretap Act and the Stored Electronic Communications Act.
We posted—right before the Google privacy policy went into effect—on how to protect yourself from Google’s monitoring all your comings and goings. Check it out if you haven’t–and update your account settings.
So this one will be one to keep an eye on. The Google privacy policy lawsuit seeks class action status (ie, it’s not certified as a class action lawsuit yet) and the complaint is seeking financial damages.