IT Home reported on February 7 that Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, has agreed to pay 3$500 million (IT House Note: Currently about 25.)RMB 200 million) to resolve a lawsuit filed by the state of Rhode Island** over the personal data breach of its former social network Google +. Before the company discovered the data breach in 2018, the data of millions of Google Plus users had been exposed to outside developers.
According to a filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, people who purchased Google** between April 23, 2018 and April 30, 2019 will be able to apply to share the settlement. Eligible investors will be notified by email and a portal with information will be set up**.
In 2018, Google realized that its systems had been exposing the data of millions of Google+ users to outside developers for years, but management chose not to notify the public or shareholders. A few months later, Wall Street reported on a potential data breach that led to Google's stock price and sparked a wave of negative coverage.
Lawsuits ensued, and in 2018, Google reached a $7.5 million class-action settlement with users affected by the data. Most applicants received only a few dollars in compensation. The case was initiated by Rhode Island, whose pension is an investor in Google. After five years of hearing, Google tried to appeal the case to the Supreme Court, but was unsuccessful, and finally reached a settlement.
We regularly identify and fix software issues, disclose relevant information, and take them seriously," said Google spokesperson José Casta Eda. ”
In December last year, a federal jury in San Francisco ruled that Google had an illegal monopoly in the app store space. Later that month, the company agreed to pay a compensation that could run into billions of dollars to Chrome browser users who were still being tracked in Incognito mode.
In September, Google will face another trial, filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging that the company violated competition laws in the digital advertising market.