Google has agreed to pay $68 million to settle a massive lawsuit claiming its voice assistant secretly spied on smartphone users. The legal battle centered on allegations that Google Assistant frequently recorded private conversations because it mistakenly thought it heard “wake words” like “Hey Google.”
The people who sued Google argued that this wasn’t just a harmless technical glitch. They claimed the company took the sensitive information it overheard—details about health, finances, or private family matters—and used it to help advertisers target those users with specific ads. Essentially, if you talked about buying a new car near your phone, the lawsuit alleged that Google would use that secret recording to flood your browser with auto ads.
According to court documents filed on Friday, Google decided to settle the case to avoid the long-term costs and risks of a trial. The deal now waits for final approval from a federal judge in San Francisco.
This settlement comes at a time when Google is moving away from the “Assistant” brand and pushing its new AI tool, Gemini, into more of its products. However, the shift doesn’t necessarily mean user privacy is safer. These new AI chatbots require even more data to function, leaving many users wondering if they can really trust the technology sitting in their pockets.
Google is not the first tech giant to face this kind of heat. Apple faced almost identical claims regarding Siri. That case ended with a $95 million settlement just this month. While these multi-million dollar payouts sound huge, they usually don’t mean much for the individual user. In the Apple case, affected users were only eligible for about $20 per device. It is a small price for a trillion-dollar company to pay for violating the trust of millions of people. For now, it serves as a reminder that your smartphone might be a much better listener than you realize.
