Major Federal Class-Action Against Google Seeks to Protect Privacy and Property Rights of Millions
Today, Clarkson Law Firm, the prominent California-based public interest firm, filed a federal class action lawsuit in the Northern District of California against Google, alleging that the company has illegally harvested the data of millions of people for the development of its lucrative AI products.
“We have only recently learned that Google has been taking everything ever created or shared online by millions of internet users, including all our personal information, creative works, and professional works, and using all of that data to train and build commercial AI Products,” said Ryan Clarkson, managing partner of Clarkson. “Google harvested this data in secret for years, without providing notice to anyone, much less with anyone’s consent. Google does not own the internet, it does not own our creative works, it does not own our expressions of our personhood, pictures of our families and children, or anything else simply because we share it online.”
The lawsuit alleges theft of both copyrighted material and personal information of millions of Americans, including children of all ages to build profitable and dangerous AI technologies in violation of state and federal privacy, property, and consumer protection laws.
“All of the stolen information belonged to real people who shared it online for specific purposes, not one of which was to train large language models to profit Google while putting the world at peril with untested and volatile AI products,” said Timothy K. Giordano, partner at Clarkson Law. “ ‘Publicly available’ has never meant free to use for any purpose.”
In response to recent legal and public scrutiny surrounding AI development practices, Google amended its privacy policy to effectively acknowledge their widespread scraping of everyone’s internet data and declare it permissible to use for their commercial gain. Google’s updated policy is a blatant admission of its unlawful scraping practice and this suit aims to hold them accountable for their flagrant disregard for privacy rights enshrined in our laws.
“Every single response from Google to combat the widespread public backlash has been too little too late,” said Tracey Cowan, partner at Clarkson Law Firm. “They not only ignored public opinion, they refused to comply with the Federal Trade Commission’s warnings to collect data in a lawful way. Google is a leader in the tech industry, and we are calling on them to be a leader in AI development. They have every resource to collect data in a lawful way and set the standard for every other company working with AI by changing their practices.”
Seeking two major remedies, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of adult and minor Google users throughout the United States, and more plaintiffs are being added every day. First, the suitasks for immediate injunctive relief, instituting a temporary freeze on further commercial use of this tech until reasonable guardrails can be put in place. Second, it seeks payment of “data dividends” as financial compensation to every person whose information was commercially misappropriated to help develop and train Google’s AI, which has produced billions of dollars in company profits.
For more details on the lawsuit, go to TogetherOn.ai.
