Google has agreed to settle a lawsuit for 3.9 billion pounds ($5 billion). The company is accused of secretly tracking Chrome users while they were in incognito mode.

According to a report in The Guardian, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the Northern District of California has suspended the court proceedings scheduled in this case, following the announcement by the attorneys on December 28 that a settlement had been reached. The trial, originally scheduled for February, has therefore been canceled.

The specific details of the settlement remain confidential. However, the attorneys have drafted a binding document outlining the conditions through a mediation process. This document will detail the key terms of a potential agreement or settlement between the parties involved.

A formal settlement agreement is expected to be submitted to the court for approval by February 24, 2024.

The allegations made by the plaintiffs suggest that Google allegedly tracked users between June 2016 and the present, using analytics, cookies, and apps.

These plaintiffs allege that this surveillance continued even when users set their browsers to "incognito" mode or other browsers to "private" mode. This process allegedly allowed Google to gather information about users' interests, their social connections, their purchasing habits, and potentially embarrassing online content.

Filed in 2020 by the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, the lawsuit sought at least 3,960 pounds ($5,000) in damages per user for violations of federal wiretapping laws and California privacy laws.

In August 2023, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers denied Google’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. She highlighted the uncertainty surrounding users’ consent to the collection of data on their browsing activity. Judge Rogers relied on statements from the company as well as its privacy policy, noting that there were limitations on the data the company could collect.

Citing the Google Chrome help page, the judge noted that browsing history, cookies, site data, and information entered into forms would not be stored on the device. Google had explicitly stated: "This means your activity does not appear in your Chrome browser history, so people who also use your device will not see your activity. Websites will treat you as a new user and won’t know who you are until you sign in.”

Despite these claims, the BBC reported that Google maintained that it had always been transparent about the data collected while browsing in incognito mode, even though some users perceived the situation differently.