Google Sued for Tracking

[Guest Black-Widow]

An individual claims that Google Plus was tracking his behavior without permission. The company is currently being sued for allegedly bypassing the privacy settings of Safari web browser to track the Internet behavior of Google Plus users.

One of the Kentucky residents, William Gourley, has recently started a lawsuit against Google over its Internet tracking. Gourley claims that despite assurances from the search giant, his Safari Internet browser didn’t opt out from tracking.

Indeed, Google admits that it tracks the behavior of its Google Plus users for advertising content. Nevertheless, William Gourley claims that he has been misled into believing that he had opted out on Safari browser.

According to the court proceedings, the search engine slash social network had instructed its users that it didn’t yet have a cookie opt out plugin for Safari browser. However, Google claimed that its own privacy settings should work. Although Safari is set to automatically block all 3rd party cookies, William Gourley still claims that his online behavior was tracked by the company.

The launched lawsuit will make the court to look at whether the search giant is at fault for the tracking content as accused, or whether it happened accidentally. Meanwhile, William Gourley insists that the company has also acted illegally by passing on data as part of its advertising and marketing program. William Gourley is currently seeking damages to make up for the suspected privacy intrusion, asking for $100 per day, or $10,000 per infringement.

According to the information presented by the District Court for Western Kentucky, by the end of 2011, there were 67,000,000 registered Google Plus users.