• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

A federal judge has again turned down Google's request to scrap a jury verdict requiring the company to pay $425 million for allegedly violating mobile users' privacy

That verdict, handed down last year after a trial, came in a class-action lawsuit brought by smartphone users who said Google gathered analytics information after they attempted to block data collection.

The jury decided against Google on two related privacy claims -- which both required jurors to find that mobile users had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data, and that Google engaged in highly offensive conduct.

Earlier this year, Google urged U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg in the Northern District of California to set aside the verdict, arguing it wasn't supported by the evidence that came out at trial.

"Google can poke holes in all that evidence, but the decision to credit it or not is the province of the jury," Seeborg wrote in an opinion issued late last week. "Google took a shot at trial, and it lost."

The new ruling marks the latest development in a battle dating to 2020, when smartphone users, including lead plaintiff Anibal Rodriguez, alleged in a class-action complaint that Google used its Analytics for Firebase code to gather app-related data -- even when users toggled off a "Web & App Activity" setting.

After the jury ruled against Google last year, the company almost immediately petitioned Seeborg to vacate the verdict.

The company argued the lawsuit shouldn't have proceeded as a class-action, contending that whether a privacy violation is "highly offensive" requires a person-by-person analysis.

Seeborg rejected that argument in February.

The following month, Google again urged Seeborg to reverse the verdict. Among other arguments, Google said collecting "pseudonymous, de-identified data" isn't highly offensive.

Google specifically called Seeborg's attention to a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision siding with Microsoft in a battle over the collection of analytics data from the ecommerce site PetSuppliesPlus.com. A three-judge panel of that court ruled last year that the plaintiff failed to show that Microsoft's analytics service collected "embarrassing, invasive, or otherwise private information."

Seeborg again rejected Google's push to vacate the verdict.

"Though the nature of the data certainly mattered, its content cannot be disentangled from the fact that Google collected it after it told users that it would not do so," he wrote.

He added that the 9th Circuit ruling in favor of Microsoft didn't help Google's argument because "there was no suggestion that Microsoft misled its users as Google did here."

While the jury found Google liable for two privacy claims, jurors also decided in the company's favor on a claim that it violated California's Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act -- an anti-hacking law that prohibits companies from accessing computer systems without authorization.

In March, lawyers for the plaintiffs sought a new trial on that claim. Seeborg also rejected that request late last week.