In Highly Watched Case, U.K. Court Allows Google-Safari Consumer Privacy Case to Proceed


March 2015

A March 27 U.K. Appellate Court ruling against Google could have significant implications in the U.K., and potentially serve as persuasive authority in other jurisdictions, as the international community continues to implement and interpret consumer protection laws with respect to data privacy.

Three years ago, Google, Inc. agreed to pay $22.5 million to settle a privacy suit filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States District Court of the Northern District of California. The FTC alleged that Google collected personal information from users of Apple, Inc.’s Safari web browser, despite representing to those users that it would not collect their data unless they consented to the collection.

According to the FTC, despite Google’s representations, the company exploited an exception to Safari’s default browser settings, allowing it to place a temporary cookie on the users’ computer. Thereafter, Google would use the temporary cookie as a way of placing more permanent advertising tracking cookies. The FTC charged that Google’s misrepresentations and continued use of targeted advertising to Safari users constituted a breach of a previous settlement agreement between the FTC and Google, in which Google agreed not to misrepresent the extent to which consumers can exercise control over information collection.

In a similar suit filed in 2013 in the U.K., a group of Safari users alleged that Google violated their data privacy rights by using the same method—what the United Kingdom Court of Appeal called the “Safari Workaround.” Google appealed an adverse ruling in a lower court, and argued to the U.K. Court of Appeal that (1) the users cannot bring a claim against Google under U.K.’s Data Protection Act (DPA) because they did not suffer any financial harm and (2) that Google was unaware that it was tracking the users’ information.

Last week, the U.K. Court of Appeal rejected both of Google’s arguments, holding that a claim under the DPA is not limited to only financial injuries, and that Google undoubtedly “became aware of it during the relevant period but chose to do nothing about it until the effect of the ‘Safari Workaround’ came into the public domain[.]”

We will be keeping a close eye on application of this ruling, and any ripple effects elsewhere as global privacy protections evolve.

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