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The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it would not review a class action lawsuit accusing Google Inc. of violating federal wiretapping law by secretly collecting consumers’ personal information with its Street View mapping cars, rejecting Google’s attempt to dismantle the case.
The High Court gave no reason for declining to take the Google Street View class action lawsuit, which has been plodding its way through the courts since 2011. Plaintiffs allege that Google’s Street View cars, which began mapping neighborhoods in 2007, violated consumers’ privacy by collecting personal information such as emails, Web history, usernames, passwords, and other data over residents’ unencrypted wireless networks.
Google has attempted unsuccessfully to have the privacy class action lawsuit dismissed multiple times. On Feb. 14, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the parties could begin discovery over Google’s assertion that its “inadvertent” collection of residents’ personal data did not violated the federal Wiretap Act.
On March 31, Google appealed the lower court’s decision, filing a petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court. A Google spokeswoman said the company was “disappointed that the Supreme Court has declined to hear the case.”
Last March, Google agreed to pay $7 million to settle a multi-year investigation by 38 state Attorneys General into claims its Street View cars violated consumers’ privacy. As part of the agreement, Google promised to destroy the data it collected and educate employees about the privacy of consumer data.
The consolidated Google Street View Class Action Lawsuit is In re: Google Inc. Street View Electronic Communications Litigation, MDL No. 2184, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.
UPDATE: On July 19, 2019, Google reached a $13 million settlement with customers who claimed that the company illegally gathered Wi-Fi network data with its Street View car fleet.
UPDATE 2: October 2019, the Google Street View class action settlement is now open. Click here to learn more.
UPDATE 3: On Jan. 20, 2020, nine attorneys general filed an amicus brief objecting to a $13 million cy pres settlement between Google and consumers which would end a class action lawsuit related to company’s gathering of Wi-Fi data with its Street View vehicles.
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