https://techmonitor.ai/policy/privacy-and-data-protection/lloyd-v-google-big-tech

Google has won an appeal against a class action-style lawsuit which was seeking compensation of up to £3bn for illegal tracking of data subjects. The court’s ruling in Lloyd v Google asserted that damages cannot be claimed on behalf of all data subjects affected by a breach en masse, saying that they will need to be assessed individually to ascertain their fiscal or emotional damages due to the breach. This is likely to benefit Big Tech in the long run, but will also protect smaller businesses against similar claims.

Richard Lloyd, former executive director of consumer watchdog Which? and known privacy advocate, bought the case against Google in 2017, alleging that the tech giant ignored iPhone user privacy settings. Lloyd put it to the courts that between 2011 and 2012 Google applied a Safari workaround to illegally override iPhone privacy settings, allowing Google to track behaviour with the use of tracking cookies. He was seeking compensation on behalf of some four million customers who were breached at that time, maintaining that they had lost control of their data, putting Google in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA 1998).