Users alleged that Google s analytics, cookies and apps let the Alphabet unit improperly track people who set Google s Chrome browser to "Incognito" mode and other browsers to "private" browsing mode.
The settlement is set to mark a substantial privacy change for Google and put significantly tighter lids on advertising data collection during private browsing sessions.
Alphabet's Google has agreed to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the internet use of millions of people who thought they were doing their browsing privately.
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on Monday said she could not find that users consented to letting Google collect information about what they viewed online because the Alphabet unit never explicitly told them it would.