The Google Assistant would activate by mistake and record a private conversation
After the Assistant misheard what it thought was a hotword, the user would receive targeted advertisements. A preliminary class action lawsuit was filed late Friday in San Jose, California federal court. It requires approval by U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman. Even though Google denied committing any wrongdoing, it said that it decided to settle the suit anyway to eliminate the potential risk, cost, and uncertainty of a trial, according to court papers.
Google Assistant is behind a $68 million settlement that will be split among Google device users. | Image credit-PhoneArena
Attorneys will receive $22.7 million from the settlement fund
The Google settlement covers people who purchased Google devices or were the victim of false accepts from Google Assistant since May 18th, 2016. While Google agreed to settle for $68 million, members of the class will not be dividing up that amount. You see, up to one-third of the settlement fund will be reserved for legal fees. That amount comes to $22.7 million.
If the class action is approved by Judge Freeman, members of the class will be allowed to file claims for up to three Google devices. The amount of the settlement that Google device users receive will be determined by the number of legitimate claims received by the court from Google device users. Once the class action is approved, you’ll receive an email at the email address associated with your Google account, or via a notification from your Google Home or Google Assistant app.
Those who submitted a valid claim in Google’s $700 million class action suit are expected to receive $2 each
The aforementioned $700 million settlement fund created by Google, which was accused in that case of manipulating app prices higher, will reportedly payout only $2 for each court-accepted claim. In a class action suit, one person or group, sues on behalf of a larger number of people or groups suffering from the same problem.
Despite the large amount of money placed into settlement funds, there are usually huge numbers of claims received by the courts. Add to that the massive legal fees paid to the attorneys, and you’ll see that class action suits are more about making lawyers wealthier than they are legal mechanisms for helping consumers get justice for an issue that negatively
impacted them.
We will be staying on top of this lawsuit and as soon as you will be able to file a claim with the court, we will let you know. Stay with us!
