Google Sued Over Toolbar Sending Data While Turned Off

Jason Weber is suing Google over how the Google Toolbar in the past sent data to Google even while the toolbar was turned off. The suit was filed on November 5th by Webner and his attorneys, KamberLaw, based in New York. The plaintiff is suing on his “personal” experience and claims that the toolbar was […]

Chat with SearchBot

Jason Weber is suing Google over how the Google Toolbar in the past sent data to Google even while the toolbar was turned off. The suit was filed on November 5th by Webner and his attorneys, KamberLaw, based in New York.

The plaintiff is suing on his “personal” experience and claims that the toolbar was still transmitting page data to Google in the background even when the enhanced toolbar was turned off. They claim that Google knew about the problem for months but did not fix the issue until much later. Much of this case cites Ben Edelman’s findings back in January 2010, where disabling the Google Toolbar did not stop Google from tracking you. Google back then acknowledged the issue, said it only impacted a specific version of Internet Explorer and issues a fix after Edelman posted the details of the issue.

Jason Weber seems to be suing based on this report, amongst other personal experiences.

Weber is suing for the profits Google made from this issue, $100 per day per violation, $10,000 per user and legal fees.

Hat tip to Gary Price for spotting this story.

You can download the PDF complaint here or view it below.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

Get the must-read newsletter for search marketers.