British Supreme Court rejects class-action lawsuit against Google

Nov. 10 (UPI) -- Britain's top court ruled against a class-action lawsuit launched at search-giant Google for violating the privacy of 5.4 million iPhone users in the country on Wednesday.

The Supreme Court stated that claimants -- led by consumer rights activist Richard Lloyd -- did not prove that material harm had been caused by the company's tracking of Safari users.

The 60-page judgment also noted British data protection laws and procedural matters between the U.S.-based company and Britain.

In 2017, Lloyd along with others formed the "Google You Owe Us" group and attempted to sue the company for allegedly collecting data from iPhone users between June 2011 and February 2012.

Google You Owe Us took the matter to the high court in 2019 and lost, but the Court of Appeal overturned the decision later that year.

The group alleged that Google intentionally created a workaround to get data that they wouldn't otherwise have access to. They tried to establish that the tracking in and of itself was harmful and that a level of compensation could be concluded.

The defendant argued that Google's aggregation of data wasn't proof enough that any real-world harm or mental distress was caused.

Though Google won in this case, it lost another case on the same day.

The European Union on Wednesday rejected an appeal by Google and upheld a $2.8 billion fine punishing the company for unfairly directing users to its shopping site.