Google subject of £1bn lawsuit over iPhone data breach
US tech giant Google is facing a lawsuit in the UK which could see the company having to pay out as much as £1bn in compensation to iPhone users it collected data on.
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Google is alleged to have illegally extracted information from more than five million users of the Apple device in 2011 and 2012 through cookies which had been automatically blocked.
Campaign group Google You Owe Us, which is led by former consumer group Which director Richard Lloyd, is bringing the case to the UK courts.
Lloyd says that iPhone users should be able to claim hundreds of pounds each, referring to the practice as a "massive abuse of trust".
"In all my years speaking up for consumers, I've rarely seen such a massive abuse of trust where so many people have no way to seek redress on their own," Lloyd said.
"Through this action, we will send a strong message to Google and other tech giants in Silicon Valley that we're not afraid to fight back."
The case alleged that google used special technology to receive data stored in Safari, the built-in internet browser in iPhones.
Google was dismissive, saying that it intended to take the issue to court.
While such large class action lawsuits are not common in the UK, in the US they have been used to grant compensation to consumers without each one having to bring an individual case.