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A recent settlement to end Google data breach claims received preliminary approval from a judge. Per settlement terms, Google will pay $7.5 million.
The preliminary approval was granted by U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila in California federal court via a Zoom meeting. Judge Davila determined that the settlement was fair and adequate in compensating consumers.
The settlement resolves a multi-district litigation — multiple class action lawsuits over the same issue which were combined into one multi-district litigation. Class Members will receive between $5 and $12 from the Google data breach class action lawsuit if the Google Plus settlement receives final approval.
Consumers eligible for the proposed settlement include US residents who had a consumer Google+ account between Jan. 1, 2015 and April 2, 2019, and whose personal information in their profiles was exposed by the two data breaches acknowledged by Google on Oct. 8, 2018 and Dec. 10, 2018.
From the settlement fund, class attorneys would receive up to $1,875 million.
The settlement asks former Magistrate Judge Elizabeth LaPort to serve a as special master to identify possible recipients for unclaimed settlement funds. According to the settlement, this move to appoint a special master was done to avoid potential future controversy in finding a recipient for unclaimed funds.
The Google Plus data breach litigation began when Zak Harris and Matt Matic filed their Google + class action lawsuit in October 2018. They alleged that a problem with the social media platform’s software allowed outside users to see data from Google+ users’ profile. Allegedly, the data breach began in 2015, but was only discovered in March 2018, leaving users’ information unprotected for multiple years.
According to Matic and Harris, Google was aware of the breach, but chose to not tell users for months. Allegedly, this put users at unnecessary and additional risk of identity theft, because it robbed them of months they could have been used to protect their personal information.
The Google Plus data breach class action lawsuit also argued that Google understated the number of consumers affected by the initial data breach. Matic and Harris claimed that, although Google said that only 500,000 users had been affected in the data breach, the actual number was much higher.
To support this claim, they noted that Google’s estimate of affected individuals was gained from its API logs, but these logs only store two weeks of data. Since the data breach had allegedly gone on for multiple years, not just weeks, the number of affected individuals was most likely much higher than what Google presented, the plaintiffs alleged.
Mere hours after Matic and Harris filed their claims, Google announced that it would be shutting down Google+. Two months later, in December 2018, Google then informed the public that another data breach had occurred between Nov. 6 and 13, 2018.
Google had attempted to have the Google Plus data breach claims tossed in 2019. However, no decision was reached on that dismissal motion, because Google and the customers agreed to settle the claims.
The judge determined that the Google data breach settlement should be preliminary approved, but did question the need for a special master to determine a recipient for funds.
Judge Davila also commented on the consumers’ use of calculations of the dark web market value for profile information. He noted that the consumers were attempting to use the value of illegal transactions to inform the value of the settlement — a legal transaction. He noted, “I suppose it is ironic, or maybe that’s not the word for it. But it is what it is, isn’t it?”
The customers had claimed in their Google data breach multi-district litigation that they had been financially harmed by Google’s failures regarding the data breach and argued that their information was at a high risk of being used nefariously because it was of high value to thieves.
Though the Google+ social media platform data breach settlement received preliminary approval, it still awaits final approval. No hearing has yet been set for final approval.
Have you ever had your personal information affected by a data breach? How did you find out about the breach? Share your experiences in the comments section below.
The Google users are represented by Maura Lea Rees of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC.
The Google Plus Data Breach Multidistrict Litigation is In re: Google Plus Profile Litigation, Case No. 5:18-cv-06164, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
UPDATE: August 2020, the Google Plus account class action settlement is now open. Click here to file a claim.
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