A US district judge has ruled that Google did not violate computer users’ rights by secretly inserting cookies on their web browsers to place tailored ads.
According to the court filings, the search engine major had been accused of ‘trapping’ consumers’ Apple and Microsoft browsers into allowing cookies.
The latest ruling comes in response to a lawsuit filed by consumers in federal court in 2012, claiming Google violated their privacy in breach of federal and state laws, which has been rejected by the court, Bloomberg reported.
According to judge Sue Robinson, Google did not intercept contents as provided for by the Wiretap Act.
Robinson also ruled that neither users were able to show that Google intercepted any ‘contents or meaning’ under California’s Invasion of Privacy Act, nor identified ‘any impairment of the performance or functioning of their computers’.
Last month, the search engine revealed works on a new anonymous identifier system for advertising, AdID, which would replace third party cookies that follow users’ behaviour for advertising purposes.
Google’s new system would generate its own secret identifier for each web user, which offers users with more control over the type of data being collected by advertisers.
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Cookies enable tracking users’ browsing activity, which would assist advertisers in targeting potential customers.
