Iphone users sue Google for £2.7bn for ‘selling their data’

GOOGLE could be forced to pay more than five million iphone users £2.7billion in compensation after being accused of selling their data without their permission.

A new consumer campaign called “Google You Owe Us” is launching a class action against the tech giant, alleging it unlawfully harvested the browsing histories of iphone users without consent by bypassing a default privacy setting and accessing personal data from the phone’s Safari browser.

A group of at least 5.4 million affected consumers could be owed hundreds of pounds each in compensation, according to Richard Lloyd, the former Which? executive director, who is spearheading the action.

If successful the case would be the biggest compensation bill ever paid to British consumers over improper use of data. A claim by 5.4million people for £500 each would result in a £2.7 billion payout for Google.

Lawyers at Mishcon de Reya have served Google with legal papers and the case is expected to be heard in the High Court next year.

A Google spokesman said: “This is not new – we have defended similar cases before. We don’t believe it has any merit and we will contest it.”