A handful of Chrome users have sued Google, accusing the browser maker of collecting personal information despite their decision not to sync data stored in Chrome with a Google Account.
The lawsuit [PDF], filed on Monday in a US federal district court in San Jose, California, claimed Google promises not to collect personal information from Chrome users who choose not to sync their browser data with a Google Account but does so anyway.
“Google intentionally and unlawfully causes Chrome to record and send users’ personal information to Google regardless of whether a user elects to Sync or even has a Google account,” the complaint stated.
Filed on behalf of “unsynced” plaintiffs Patrick Calhoun, Elaine Crespo, Hadiyah Jackson and Claudia Kindler – all said to have stopped using Chrome and to wish to return to it, rather than use a different browser, once Google stops tracking unsynced users – the lawsuit cited the Chrome Privacy Notice.
Since 2016, that notice has promised, “You don’t need to provide any personal information to use Chrome.” And since 2019, it has said, “the personal information that Chrome stores won’t be sent to Google unless you choose to store that data in your Google Account by turning on sync,” with earlier versions offering variants on that wording.
Nonetheless, whether or not account synchronization has been enabled, it’s claimed, Google uses Chrome to collect IP addresses linked to user agent data, identifying cookies, unique browser identifiers called X-Client Data Headers, and browsing history. And it does so supposedly in violation of federal wiretap laws and state statutes.
Google then links that information with individuals and their devices, it’s claimed, through practices like cookie syncing, where cookies set in a third-party context get associated with cookies set in a first-party context.
“Cookie synching allows cooperating websites to learn each other’s cookie identification numbers for the same user,” the complaint says. “Once the cookie synching operation is complete, the two websites exchange information that they have collected and hold about a user, further making these cookies ‘Personal Information.'”
The litigants pointed to Google’s plan to phase out third-party cookies, and noted Google doesn’t need cookies due to the ability of its X-Client-Data Header to uniquely identify people.
Robin Edgar
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