A group of iPhone users known as ‘Google You Owe Us’ has filed a lawsuit against Google in the U.K. seeking as much as 3.2 billion pounds ($3.9 billion) in damages over data-collection claims, according to documents filed with the court in 2018, Bloomberg is reporting.
The lawsuit, that has recently been given the go-ahead by London appeals judges after overturning an earlier ruling that had dismissed the case, alleges Google unlawfully gathered personal information by bypassing the iPhone’s default privacy settings.
The group representing over 4 million people is led by consumer advocate Richard Lloyd and has been given permission to hear the case as a “representative action” that is equivalent to a U.S. class action.
The court said Lloyd had agreed to seek the “lowest common denominator” of damages, potentially lowering the value of the lawsuit.
“This case, quite properly if the allegations are proved, seeks to call Google to account for its allegedly wholesale and deliberate misuse of personal data without consent, undertaken with a view to a commercial profit,“ Judge Geoffrey Vos said Wednesday in the ruling.
Google has responded by saying that the case should be dismissed as it plans to seek permission from the U.K.’s highest court to appeal.
