Google refuses to answer to British court over privacy lawsuit
Search giant insists lawsuit concerning UK internet users’ privacy should be brought in California where it is based
Google has been called “arrogant and immoral” for arguing that a privacy claim brought by internet users in the UK should not be heard by the British legal system.
The search giant will tell the high court on Monday that it should throw out claims that it secretly tracked the browsing habits of millions of iPhone users.
In the first group claim brought against Google in the UK, the internet firm has insisted that the lawsuit must be brought in California, where it is based, instead of a British courtroom.
Hundreds of internet users are preparing to sue Google if the test case gets the green light.
Google is accused by the claimants of secretly monitoring their behaviour by circumventing security settings on the iPhone, iPad and desktop versions of the Safari web browser.
Google must be held to account here, even though it would prefer to ignore England
Judith Vidal-Hall, one of the claimants suing Google, said: “Google is very much here in the UK. It has a UK specific site. It has staff here. It sells adverts here. It makes money here. It is ludicrous for it to claim that, despite all of this very commercial activity, it won’t answer to our courts.