Privacy cases and a $135M settlement
U.S. residents may be eligible for part of a $135 million settlement over Google's data‑collection practices, while a new class action alleges WhatsApp, Meta and Accenture improperly intercepted private messages—signs that privacy litigation and large settlements remain a steady compliance cost ( ). Taken together, the cases underline that platform data use and vendor access to messages continue to be litigated aggressively (wtol.com).
A $135 million Google settlement just opened a claims process for Android users, while a new lawsuit says WhatsApp’s “private” messages were not as private as advertised. The two cases hit different products, but they land on the same pressure point: what companies collect in the background and who gets to see it. (wtol.com) (thenews.com.pk) In the Google case, the allegation was not that someone read your texts. It was that Android phones sent data back to Google even when the phones were sitting idle, and that the transfers used customers’ paid cellular data without clear permission. (wtol.com) (courthousenews.com) The settlement covers U.S. residents who used an Android device between August 1, 2016, and September 30, 2019, and who paid for cellular data themselves rather than getting fully reimbursed by another person or company. The court is scheduled to hold a final approval hearing on June 23, 2026. (wtol.com) (yahoo.com) News reports say more than 100 million people could fall inside that class, which is why individual payments are expected to be small even with a nine-digit settlement. In class actions like this, the check is usually less important than the rule the case tries to enforce: don’t quietly turn a customer’s phone plan into your delivery pipe. (classaction.org) (wtol.com) The WhatsApp case is sharper because it goes to the content of messages, not just background traffic. Plaintiffs Brian Y. Shirazi and Nida Samson sued Meta Platforms, WhatsApp, Accenture PLC and Accenture LLP in federal court in Northern California on March 25, 2026. (justia.com) (pacermonitor.com) Their claim is that WhatsApp marketed chats as protected by end-to-end encryption, which is the lockbox idea where only the sender and the recipient should have the key, while company staff, contractors or outside vendors could still intercept, read or store some messages. The reporting on the suit specifically names Accenture as the outside contractor tied to those allegations. (thenews.com.pk) (classaction.org) That distinction is why the lawsuit is getting attention. End-to-end encryption protects messages in transit, but the complaint argues the privacy promise still breaks down if messages are exposed after they reach company systems or human reviewers tied to the platform. (thenews.com.pk) (ndtvprofit.com) At this stage, the WhatsApp case is only an allegation, and the court has not decided whether the claims are true. The Google matter is further along, because Google already agreed to settle while still denying wrongdoing, which is common in privacy litigation where companies want to cap risk without admitting liability. (thenews.com.pk) (wtol.com) Put together, the two cases show how privacy fights now split into two lanes. One lane is about metadata and device behavior like background data transfers, and the other is about access to actual message content by employees, contractors or vendors. (wtol.com) (topclassactions.com) For the biggest platforms, that means privacy is no longer just a settings page or a marketing slogan. It is a recurring legal bill, a discovery process that reaches into vendor contracts and internal systems, and sometimes a settlement fund with eight or nine digits attached. (wtol.com) (classaction.org)
