Google to Pay Over Claims Voice Assistant Eavesdropped
Newser • • business
Key Points:
- Google has agreed to pay $68 million to settle a lawsuit alleging its voice assistant improperly recorded private conversations and shared the information with advertisers.
- The lawsuit claims the assistant, designed to activate on prompts like "Hey Google," sometimes recorded conversations due to "false accepts," or inadvertent activations when it misheard speech.
- Google denied any wrongdoing but opted to settle to avoid the costs and risks of ongoing litigation, with the settlement covering affected users dating back to May 18, 2016.
- The settlement must be approved by a federal judge in San Jose, California, and follows a similar lawsuit settlement by Apple over its Siri assistant.
