Google is facing another privacy-related lawsuit, this time for allegedly doing something the company promised it would never do: sell user data.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, and seeking class-action status, claims that Google is reneging on promises CEO Sundar Pichai made in a New York Times op-ed. In that article, Pichai said: “Google will never sell any personal information to third parties; and that you get to decide how your information is used.”
According to Mercury News, the plaintiffs point to Google’s long history of privacy abuses and claim the company is “continually and surreptitiously” selling data via its digital ad “real-time bidding” system. In particular, while some companies are using the system as intended, the lawsuits claims others are siphoning off data for their own uses.
“Many participants do not place bids and only participate to conduct surveillance and collect ever more detailed data points about millions of Google’s consumers,” the suit claims.
The lawsuit is the latest scrutiny Google is facing for how it handles and administers the gargantuan amount of data it collects. Should the suit gain class-action status, it will only add to the company’s headaches.