Republican states balk at Google privacy settlement in US appeal
By Mike Scarcella
Sept 19 (Reuters) -A group of Republican state attorneys general on Wednesday urged a U.S. appeals court to reject a $62 million consumer privacy settlement with Google GOOGL.O that awards money to the plaintiffs’ lawyers and to advocacy groups, but not to class members.
The 20 state attorneys general, led by Iowa and including Florida, Ohio, Georgia and Virginia, told the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the deal provides more benefits to “controversial political organizations” than to class members.
The states' friend-of-the-court brief backing a challenge to the accord said it was improper to funnel the settlement funds tothird-party groups whose areas of focus include "environmental justice, abortion, and controversial positions on sex and sexuality.” The states said their work was "wholly unrelated to the class’s data privacy claim."
Google in a statement said the organizations selected by the parties in the case "have a strong commitment to promoting online privacy." The company said the states had an opportunity to object earlier to the settlement terms but had not done so.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs, who will receive $18 million in fees from the deal, did not immediately respond to arequest for comment.
In the underlying case, Google was accused of unlawfully tracking and storing location data for 247.7 million U.S. mobile users who had disabled “location history” on their phones. Google denied any wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.
The judge who approved the deal in May found payments to class members would be too small to be practical.
The dispute offers the San Francisco-based appeals court its latest opportunity to examine the propriety of “cy pres only” settlements in which funds are earmarked for independent groups to pursue interests tied to the claims in the case.
The 21 recipients of $42.6 million in settlement funds include the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project; Free Press; and Yale Law School’s Information Society Project. The groups did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
A group of class members appealed the approval of the settlement to the 9th Circuit. The challengers are led by Theodore Frank, director at the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute and the Center for Class Action Fairness.
In a filing last week, Frank criticized what he called the “tremendous size of the cy pres fund with no effort to distribute to the class.”
Iowa and the other states argued that many of the recipients of settlement funds do not have a “substantial nexus” to the class members’ interests.
The states asked the appeals court to at least order the reconsideration of third-party groups that “do not solely advance the social justice aims of the defendants and class counsel.”
The case is Napoleon Patacsil et al v. Google, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 24-3387.
For plaintiffs: Michael Sobol of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein; and Tina Wolfson of Ahdoot & Wolfson
For objectors: Theodore Frank of Center for Class Action Fairness
For states: Eric Wessan of the Iowa Attorney General’s Office
Read more:
Google privacy deal yields $18 mln for lawyers, no funds for consumers
Related Assets
Latest News
Disclaimer: The XM Group entities provide execution-only service and access to our Online Trading Facility, permitting a person to view and/or use the content available on or via the website, is not intended to change or expand on this, nor does it change or expand on this. Such access and use are always subject to: (i) Terms and Conditions; (ii) Risk Warnings; and (iii) Full Disclaimer. Such content is therefore provided as no more than general information. Particularly, please be aware that the contents of our Online Trading Facility are neither a solicitation, nor an offer to enter any transactions on the financial markets. Trading on any financial market involves a significant level of risk to your capital.
All material published on our Online Trading Facility is intended for educational/informational purposes only, and does not contain – nor should it be considered as containing – financial, investment tax or trading advice and recommendations; or a record of our trading prices; or an offer of, or solicitation for, a transaction in any financial instruments; or unsolicited financial promotions to you.
Any third-party content, as well as content prepared by XM, such as: opinions, news, research, analyses, prices and other information or links to third-party sites contained on this website are provided on an “as-is” basis, as general market commentary, and do not constitute investment advice. To the extent that any content is construed as investment research, you must note and accept that the content was not intended to and has not been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and as such, it would be considered as marketing communication under the relevant laws and regulations. Please ensure that you have read and understood our Notification on Non-Independent Investment. Research and Risk Warning concerning the foregoing information, which can be accessed here.
