There's another sky-high claim! One is $35 billion

Li Di, a trainee reporter for the China Foundation

After being fined $8m by Sweden this year, Google is in trouble again over user privacy issues.

On Tuesday, Google was accused of illegally collecting user data, claiming $5 billion, or more than 35 billion yuan, in damages.

Big data analytics on user information is a key competitiveness for Internet advertising giants, so giants such as Google tend to take the risk of "invading" users' privacy, and Facebook, which accounts for more than 90 percent of advertising revenue, has been sadded with huge $5 billion in fines.

Google's share price has not fluctuated much as the litigation process is still in its infancy.

Google has been hit with a class-action lawsuit for $5 billion

Data is still collected in silent mode

BEIJING, June 3 (Reuters) - In a class-action lawsuit, Google has been accused of illegally violating the privacy of millions of users by still tracking users' Internet use in the browser's "no trace" mode.

The lawsuit seeks google compensation of at least $5,000 per user or three times the actual loss, whichever is greater, and at least $5 billion in damages for the violation of federal wiretapping and California privacy laws.

Many Google users assume that their search history is not tracked when viewed in private mode, but this is not the case.

According to a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Jose, California, users use a variety of methods to collect data, such as through google Analytics, Google Ad Management and various Google services and apps, even if they don't click on ads placed by Google. In addition, in silent mode, Google will still complete the data collection without the user's knowledge.

The lawsuit is understood to have been filed by three Google users in Los Angeles and Florida.

Google "cannot continue to collect secret and unauthorized data on almost every American's computer or mobile phone," the complaint said. "

Incognito mode in Google Chrome is known to allow users to choose to search the Internet without having to save their activity to a browser or device, but websites visited can use tools such as Google Analytics to track usage.

Some netizens expressed shock that I was not the only one who knew what I was looking at in unmarked browsing mode.

There are also netizens said that this is normal, more netizens radically think that with other people's development of software and mobile phones, there is no privacy at all.

A Google spokesman said it would defend itself

Google denied that the actions mentioned in the lawsuit were illegal, and Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said the company would do its best to defend itself: "As we made clear, every time you open a new incognito tag, the site may collect information about your browsing activity." "

The spokesman also said that

It is reported that Google in its official website declared that the indentation mode will not prevent the following behavior:

Websites are not prevented from identifying you

Websites you visit, your school, employer, or Internet service provider are not prevented from seeing your activity or location

Websites you visit are not prevented from serving ads based on your activity during a traceless session

Computer security researchers have long worried that Google and competitors might track people's identities in different browsing modes and enrich their data with data from normal browsing and indented modes.

According to Google's 2020 quarterly report, the company had $117.2 billion in cash and short-term investments on its books at the end of March 2020, including $19.6 billion in cash. In theory, even if you lose the case, paying a hefty fine would not create a big financial crisis for Google.

Google advertising revenue accounts for more than 80%

Restricted collection of information may make the advertising business worse

Google, the internet giant, is more of an advertising ad ad ad ad ad ad, and its advertising revenue has long been a high proportion of google's total revenue.

In the first quarter of this year, for example, Alphabet, Google's parent company, reported revenue of $41.2 billion, including $33.8 billion in advertising revenue, or 82.04 percent.

The same is true of Facebook, another giant, which generated $17.737 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2020, including $17.44 billion in advertising revenue, or 98.3 percent.

And Google, Facebook and other giants of Internet advertising compared to traditional advertising, one of the biggest advantages, is able to accurately deliver according to customer information, customer data processing and analysis ability is also one of the focus of the Internet company's advertising business competition. In addition, ad delivery through big data analytics results in higher point-to-point rates.

If Google loses the case, its ability to collect customer data may be limited, which could put its advertising business, which has been hit by the outbreak, more vulnerable.

Travel advertising contributes about 10 to 15 percent of Google's revenue, according to estimates by The Financial Institute.

The tourism industry has been hit hard by the outbreak, and several companies have cut back on advertising. Booking Holdings Inc, the world's largest online travel platform, said it would "significantly" cut its marketing costs. The company, which spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on marketing, spends about 3% of Google's revenue on advertising.

YouTube, another of Google's big advertising platforms, has also been hit, with one digital advertising executive saying youTube's cost per 1,000 impressions has fallen by 8 per cent.

Google has frequently been the subject of lawsuits over privacy issues

Advertising giant Facebook has also made several attempts

Google and Facebook, the two big internet advertising giants, have worked so much in recent years to collect user data in order to deliver accurate ads. Last year, there were media reports that Google employees would listen to audio files from Google Home's smart speakers and voice assistant apps, which Google said was "to better develop voice technology and improve the user experience." "

Google and Facebook have also faced lawsuits over their efforts to collect user privacy.

In the first half of 2019, France's privacy regulator fined Google 50 million euros for transparency. In the second half of the year, Google was fined another $170 million for illegally collecting information about minors on Its video platform, YouTube. Its Nightingale program, launched in November, was once again called off for illegally collecting information on millions of patient records.

In March, Google was fined $8 million, or about 55.68 million yuan, for violating data protection laws in Sweden.

In mid-May, Google also faced complaints from Austrian activists who argued that it had been illegally monitoring Android phone users with a unique ID and passing "tracking IDs" to advertisers.

Facebook was fined $100m by the US Securities and Exchange Commission last July for allegedly under-disclosure of its privacy practices.

In January, Facebook settled a class-action lawsuit over its use of facial recognition technology in Illinois for $550 million.

At the end of April, Facebook paid a $5 billion fine to the FTC for the Cambridge Analytico incident, breaking a record for a similar fine, which the Federal Trade Commission called "unprecedented." In addition, the United States, Australia and other places in the multi-phase litigation is still in the process. The lawsuit is understood to have been caused by allegations that it improperly shared information about 87m global users with cambridge Analytics, a now-bankrupt British company, using investigative tools.

In addition, Facebook is facing a new round of lawsuits related to tracking users' privacy, Reuters reported on April 10. On April 9th a federal appeals court reopened a nationwide lawsuit allred with allegations that Facebook violated users' privacy by tracking their Internet activity after they quit the social networking site.

Editor: Captain

“

China Fund News: Report on everything the fund is concerned about

https://image.ipaiban.com/upload-ueditor-image-20160809-1470749652254027160.jpg

Chinafundnews

Press and hold to identify the QR code, pay attention to the China Fund Report

The China Fund Daily enjoys copyright on the original content published on this platform and is prohibited from reprinting without authorization, otherwise it will be held liable.

Authorized to reproduce co-authorised contact: Mr. Yu (tel: 0755-82468670)

Wanshui thousand mountains are always love, point a "look" ok!!!