Google has agreed to pay $68 million to settle a class action lawsuit arguing that its voice-activated assistant secretly recorded smart device users in violation of their privacy.
A preliminary settlement was filed on Friday in San Jose, California, federal court, but still requires approval by U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman.
The tech giant was accused of illegally recording and disseminating private conversations after its Google Assistant tool was triggered so it could send them targeted advertising.
Google Assistant, which is only supposed to record when a user says phrases such as "Hey Google," or "Okay Google" or when someone manually pushes a button on the device, inappropriately recorded personal conversations when these "hot words" were not used, without the knowledge of the users of Google smartphones, home speakers, laptops, tablets, Chromecast media players and even wireless earphones, according to the lawsuit.
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