Judge Rejects Google's Plea on $2.36B User Data Fine

In a ruling delivered on Friday, January 30, 2026, a federal judge in San Francisco rejected Alphabet's Google's attempt to escape a significant financial penalty. The company had sought to overturn a potential $2.36 billion fine concerning its past collection of user data. This action followed a jury's September verdict finding Google liable for secretly gathering data from millions of users who had turned off a specific privacy setting.

Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg denied the consumers' request to force Google to disgorge $2.36 billion in alleged profits and cease certain ad-related data practices. Google had urged the judge not to add this penalty to the jury's September award of approximately $425 million in damages. The jury had previously issued an advisory verdict against disgorgement.

Google has denied wrongdoing and intends to appeal the September verdict. The judge also rejected Google's attempt to decertify the class of 98 million users and 174 million devices. Plaintiffs argued that Google had not altered its privacy disclosures or data collection practices despite the verdict. However, Google countered that blocking its data collection would severely disrupt its analytics service relied upon by numerous app developers.

Ultimately, Judge Seeborg found that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated "prospective, irreparable harm" to justify a permanent injunction. The judge also stated that the consumers had not sufficiently supported their estimate of Google's profits to warrant disgorgement.