According to foreign media reports, Google agreed to pay $68 million to settle a class action alleging that Google was secretly listening to private conversations between users via mobile phones. The plaintiff alleged that Google assistants were accidentally triggered on the equipment to record private conversations and shared the recording with the advertiser for targeted advertising. Google denied the existence of misconduct in court documents seeking reconciliation and stated that it was intended to avoid litigation. Google assistants are designed to listen to specific activated phrases (usually “hey, Google”) in stand-by mode, to activate a back-to-back opportunity to record audio and send it to Google servers for analysis. Google emphasizes that no audio is transmitted in stand-by mode.
However, the litigation argued that Google assistants sometimes misstarted (the mobile phone miscalculated the live language of the user) to record a conversation that was supposed to be private. The plaintiff claimed that the recordings were sent to advertisers for the creation of targeted advertisements. The case was brought in the form of a class action rather than an individual case and, if granted, the award would be distributed to a large number of plaintiffs. Users eligible for compensation are required to hold Google equipment dating back to May 2016. The plaintiff ‘ s counsel may have claimed up to one third of the settlement (approximately $22 million) as counsel ‘ s fee.
Apple had previously agreed to pay $95 million in January this year to settle such cases, which accused its voice assistant, Siri, of bugging users through equipment without authorization. Apple similarly denied the existence of misconduct and rejected its allegation that it “recorded, disclosed to third parties without consent or did not delete the dialogue recorded as a result of Siri’s activation”. Google has been phasing out Google Assistants over the past year and replacing them with Gemini tools. However, artificial smart chat robots are not absolutely trustworthy, nor are they impeccable in terms of privacy protection.