The Alphabet Inc. main unit — Google — is facing another major legal setback after a U.S. federal jury found the company violated users’ privacy, ordering it to pay over $425 million.

A San Francisco jury ruled that Google was responsible for two of the three privacy claims raised by the plaintiffs. However, the panel found that the company had not acted with malice, sparing it from additional punitive damages.

The case, filed in 2020, accused Google of illegally collecting user data from millions of devices even after customers turned off the “Web & App Activity” tracking option in their account settings.

According to the court, the data collection occurred through third-party applications such as Uber, Instagram, and Venmo, which used Google’s analytics and advertising tools.

The class action is estimated to cover about 98 million users across 174 million devices.

Meanwhile, Google denied wrongdoing and said the verdict misinterprets how its products function.

“Our privacy controls give people clear choices, and the data in question was nonpersonal, pseudonymous, and stored securely,” a company spokesperson said, adding that Google intends to appeal the ruling.

This recent verdict adds to Google’s growing legal challenges, including a Texas lawsuit earlier this year that prompted the company to pay nearly $1.4 billion to settle claims over unauthorized biometric data collection. In 2024, it reached a settlement requiring the deletion of billions of browsing records tied to “Incognito” mode.

Alphabet also agreed to a $500 million shareholder settlement in June to strengthen its compliance and risk oversight systems.

The outcome underscores intensifying scrutiny of Google’s business practices, as regulators and courts worldwide confront the company over its handling of user information and market dominance.