A federal jury has ruled that Google must pay 425.7 million dollars for secretly accessing data from people’s smartphones over nearly a decade. The decision, delivered Wednesday in San Francisco federal court after a trial lasting more than two weeks, applies to about 98 million smartphones used in the United States between July 2016 and September 2024. The payout amounts to roughly 4 dollars per device.

Google denied any wrongdoing, insisting it did not track users who believed their privacy settings protected them. Despite this defense, the eight-member jury determined the company had violated California privacy laws. A company spokesperson, Jose Castaneda, said Thursday that Google plans to appeal, arguing the ruling misrepresents how its services function and maintaining that its privacy tools respect user choices when personalization is turned off. Attorneys representing the plaintiffs contended that Google exploited smartphone data without consent to boost its advertising business, generating billions in revenue. They had pushed for damages exceeding 30 billion dollars, framing the company’s actions as unlawful profiteering.

While the awarded damages fell far short of that figure, the plaintiffs’ legal team still called the outcome a win for consumer privacy. Attorney John Yanchunis of Morgan and Morgan said the verdict should warn the tech industry that Americans will not tolerate their personal data being harvested and monetized without permission. The ruling came just one day after Google escaped a U.S. Department of Justice push to break up its search engine operations in an antitrust case in Washington, D.C. Instead, a federal judge ordered less drastic measures, requiring Google to share portions of its search data with competitors.