Google to pay $68 million to settle allegations it secretly recorded conversations

Google has agreed to pay $68 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that its voice assistant secretly recorded smart device users in violation of their privacy.

A preliminary settlement was filed Friday in federal court in San Jose, California, but still needs approval by U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman.

The tech giant has been accused of illegally recording and publishing private conversations after running its Google Assistant tool so it could send them targeted ads.

Google pays $1.4 billion to Texas to settle claims of unauthorized tracking and private data collection

Google Assistant, which is only supposed to record when a user says phrases like “Hey Google” or “Okay Google” or when someone manually presses a button on the device, inappropriately recorded personal conversations when those “hot words” were not being used, without the knowledge of users of Google smartphones, home speakers, laptops, tablets, Chromecast media players and even wireless earbuds, according to the lawsuit.

Users claimed they were targeted with ads based on things they said when they were not trying to operate their smart devices with a hot word.

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The tech giant has been accused of illegally recording and publishing private conversations after running its Google Assistant tool so it could send them targeted ads. (Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images/Getty Images)

Google did not admit any wrongdoing, but said it decided to settle to avoid the “uncertainty, risk, expense, inconvenience and distraction” of prolonged litigation, according to court documents.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys can ask for up to a third of the settlement fund, or about $22.7 million, for legal fees.

Apple reached a similar settlement with smartphone users in December 2024 regarding its virtual assistant Siri for $95 million.

Google did not admit any wrongdoing, but said it decided to settle to avoid the “uncertainty, risk, expense, inconvenience, and distraction” resulting from protracted litigation. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images/Getty Images)

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Google has also settled other privacy complaints in the past, including one settled last spring, when it agreed to pay $1.4 billion to Texas to settle a lawsuit alleging the company collected user data without permission.

It was also ordered in September to pay $425.7 million for violating users’ privacy by collecting data on millions of people who turned off tracking in their Google accounts.

In 2024, the company agreed to destroy billions of data records of users’ private browsing activities to settle a lawsuit accusing it of tracking people they believe are browsing privately, including in “incognito” mode.

Reuters contributed to this report.