On January 26, 2026, Reuters reported that Alphabet Inc. (Google) has reached a $68 million settlement to resolve a long-standing class-action lawsuit. The suit alleged that Google Assistant unlawfully recorded private conversations without user consent, leading to significant privacy concerns.
The Core of the Allegation: "False Accepts"
The lawsuit, filed in a San Jose federal court, centered on a phenomenon known as "False Accepts." Plaintiffs argued that Google Assistant frequently triggered recording after misinterpreting background noise or everyday speech as wake words like "Hey Google" or "Okay Google." The plaintiffs claimed these accidental recordings captured private moments that were never intended for the cloud. Furthermore, they alleged that this data was harvested to power targeted advertising, a direct violation of California’s privacy and wiretapping laws.
Google Denies Wrongdoing but Settles
While Google has officially denied any liability or wrongdoing, the tech giant chose to settle. In court documents, Google stated the decision to pay $68 million was made to "avoid the inherent risks, expenses, and distractions of prolonged litigation."
Who is Eligible?
The settlement covers individuals in the U.S. who purchased a Google Assistant-enabled device or experienced a "false accept" event dating back to May 18, 2016.
The Payout: Judge Beth Labson Freeman must still provide final approval. While the total fund is substantial, individual payouts are expected to be modest once the legal fees (estimated at 1/3 of the fund, or $22.7 million) are deducted.
A Growing Legal Trend
Google is not alone in this legal battlefield. This settlement follows a similar case involving Apple’s Siri, which was settled in January 2025 for a higher sum of $95 million.
- AI systems don't constantly "listen" to everything and send it to the cloud. Instead, they use "on-device passive listening," which detects sound waveforms that match activation commands. Problems often arise when accents or TV sounds match those command patterns.
- Back in 2019, reports revealed that Google (and other companies) used human contractors to listen to short recordings of Assistant to improve sound quality (Quality Assurance). This "real people" secretly listening to users' conversations in their homes was a major cause of this lawsuit.
- Currently, Google has added a "Sensitivity Adjustment" feature allowing users to choose how difficult or easy they want Hey Google to detect, as well as an automatic voice history deletion feature (Auto-delete) to alleviate privacy concerns.
- The settlement in this case and the Apple (Siri) case signals the end of the era of "invisible consent," or the clandestine collection of data under the guise of convenience. AI services in 2026 will need to be much more transparent (opt-in by default) as fines and defamation costs become increasingly high.
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Source: Reuters
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