Google giant and British justice
Since the beginning of the month, the American digital giant Google is still in the crosshairs of the British justice for a case concerning iPhone users that the American firm allegedly tracked down.
Google is alleged to have illegally collected information about users of the iPhone Safari browser between 2011 and 2012. This is yet another case that will tarnish the image of the American giant and reinforce the suspicions that were formed against it.
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The British court has already ruled that the US company must answer for the charges that could soon weigh on it. Opposed to the American firm, a consumer organization called "You Own Us". This group is led by a man named Richard Lloyd. He says the U.S. company has allowed itself to collect personal information from more than 5.4 million iPhone users.
Google has succeeded in this mischief by bypassing the privacy configuration that was installed by default on the browser of iPhone phones by Apple. This action has been dubbed the "Safari Workaround"." Through this merry-go-round, Google used its intrusion to spy on the browsing history of target users, and to use their personal data to orchestrate a set of targeted advertisements.
Apparently, it would have taken a JavaScript program snippet to successfully circumvent the protection of the iPhone browser that prevented cookie installations on Safari. « We have taken a representative action against Google because we believe that they have abused the rights of iPhone users by taking their illegally," the complainants explained.
Group representative Richard Lloyd said he wanted to look for the "lowest common denominator." And we are expected to be fined a big one for Google given the number of people who make up this group of complainants. This is not a first in the company's history. As early as 2013 Google was ordered to pay $17 million for claims made by 37 U.S. states regarding the same issue involving Safari, the Apple browser that was used to install cookies on terminals without users being asked for permission.
In addition, it was pointed out to Google, which had stated loudly that the default setting of the iPhone browser could simply be enough to prevent them from being tracked by the websites visited. Which was obviously wrong. It is known that after this case, Google had requested that no cookies be installed on the phone of iPhone users without their notice being requested beforehand. The invoice settled of course amicably, and Apple for its part had provided security fix that was supposed to ensure greater security regarding the use of the Safari browser.
For its part, Google intends to ask the British high court to reject the trial in this case: "This case concerns events that occurred almost a decade ago and which we discussed at the time. The U.S. company's spokesman said.
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