The final verdict in a class-action lawsuit filed in August 2019 against Google has ordered the company to pay $314 million in fines. Google was charged with using cellular data to send data back to the company without the user’s permission when their device was in an idle state.

Google extracts this data from Android devices when its services are open and running in the background, even when the user has closed all Google apps. The data collection happens even when the phone is completley dormant, and can eat up cellular data limits.

The plaintiffs argued that Google could make these transfers only when a phone is connected to WiFi, but instead deliberatly chose to design them to use cellelar networks. This unauthorised use of cellular data, especially without user consent, is illegal in the state of California, and with a class size of over 13 million, has reportedly caused “hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to the class.”

In once instance, a Samsung Galaxy S7 device running on default settings with the usual pre-loaded apps and a new Google account sent and recieved 8.88 MB of cellular data per day. 94 percent of this data was used for communication between the device and Google servers. Within 24 hours, the device transmitted data to Google 389 times, mostly sending log files with operating system metrics, network state, and a list of open apps.

None of this data is considered time sensitive, so Google could well provide the option to send this data over WiFi but deliberatly chose otherwise. Google disagrees, adding that it’ll appeal the decision as the data collected is related to services that are “critical to the security, performance, and reliability of Android devices” in a statement to Reuters. It also claimed that it obtained permissions for the data transfer in its terms of use agreement.

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