{"id":26624,"date":"2020-06-03T18:49:19","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T13:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/google-sued-in-u-s-for-tracking-private-internet-use\/"},"modified":"2020-06-03T18:49:19","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T13:19:19","slug":"google-sued-in-u-s-for-tracking-private-internet-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=26624","title":{"rendered":"Google sued in U.S. for tracking &#8216;private&#8217; internet use"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>The Alphabet Inc unit is accused of surreptitiously collecting information about what people view online and where they browse<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/international\/google-sued-in-us-for-tracking-private-internet-use\/article31735798.ece\">Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Google was sued on Tuesday in a proposed class action accusing the internet search company of illegally invading the privacy of millions of users by pervasively tracking their internet use through browsers set in \u201cprivate\u201d mode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The lawsuit seeks at least $5 billion, accusing the Alphabet Inc unit of surreptitiously collecting information about what people view online and where they browse, despite their using what Google calls Incognito mode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the complaint filed in the federal court in San Jose, California, Google gathers data through Google Analytics, Google Ad Manager and other applications and website plug-ins, including smartphone apps, regardless of whether users click on Google-supported ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This helps Google learn about users&#8217; friends, hobbies, favorite foods, shopping habits, and even the \u201cmost intimate and potentially embarrassing things\u201d they search for online, the complaint said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u2018Unauthorised data collection\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Google \u201ccannot continue to engage in the covert and unauthorised data collection from virtually every American with a computer or phone,\u201d the complaint said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jose Castaneda, a Google spokesman, said the Mountain View, California-based company will defend itself vigorously against the claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAs we clearly state each time you open a new incognito tab, websites might be able to collect information about your browsing activity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While users may view private browsing as a safe haven from watchful eyes, computer security researchers have long raised concern that Google and rivals might augment user profiles by tracking people&#8217;s identities across different browsing modes, combining data from private and ordinary internet surfing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The complaint said the proposed class likely includes \u201dmillions\u201d of Google users who since June 1, 2016 browsed the internet in \u201cprivate\u201d mode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It seeks at least $5,000 of damages per user for violations of federal wiretapping and California privacy laws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Alphabet Inc unit is accused of surreptitiously collecting information about what people view online and where they browse Reuters Google was sued on Tuesday in a proposed class action accusing the internet search company of illegally invading the privacy of millions of users by pervasively tracking their internet use through browsers set in \u201cprivate\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25534,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}