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UK Supreme Court votes down a £3B lawsuit against Google

59 points by the-dude 5y ago

Proven 5y ago
Valid points in the ruling - no evidence of financial damage or distress. Good outcome. Let the downvoting begin!
Mindwipe 5y ago
It's hard to see how this "sends shockwaves through [the] legal community." The ruling essentially upheld the status quo in the UK, and doesn't even definitively do that. It's pretty unsurprising.
- xpe 5y ago
  On what basis do you say this is the status quo? Link?
  - aardvark179 5y ago
    Not the GP but. Mass action lawsuits are not common under English law, and opt-out mass action lawsuits are only allowed in a small number of legal areas, competition law and data protection being two. I think Merrick vs Mastercard has been one of the biggest and was to do with excessive card fees so is easy to demonstrate what the harm to each victim would be. The Google case doesn’t sound like it has significantly changed things in this area.
xibalba 5y ago
> “ failed to provide evidence of financial damages and mental distress being caused to any individual iPhone users.” Glad to see some reason exists in the world. To read HN comments, one would think cookies and tracking pixels were robbing peoples’ bank accounts or publicizing their illicit affairs to friends and family.
- sumtechguy 5y ago
  Yeah this is sort of like littering. One wrapper on the ground does not mean much. But millions of them do. Which is basically what many of these companies have done. Basically lots of 'little' things that add up to a big thing. In this particular case it sounds like the one who brought the case did not sufficiently show the court that any harm had occurred? Reading the output to the case probably would be better here instead of playing telephone with an article and why it is 'sending shockwaves'. This sounds more like 'you did not make your case try again some other time'.
  - crispyambulance 5y ago
    > lots of 'little' things that add up to a big thing. Yes. Another way to think about it is that we have a situation where people/citizens as a whole are hurt rather than individuals. It boils down to the argument of whether or not these concerns apply to individuals that have "nothing to hide". I say yes, it does. What happened with Facebook and Cambridge Analytica is an example of what the future holds. Was any specific individual "hurt" by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica providing massive amounts of information to bad-actors running disinformation campaigns? No. Was democracy as we know it hurt? Yes. The same infrastructure used to effectively sell us toothpaste and other consumer goods, is something that has been on the wish list of autocratic despots for decades. This stuff is irresistible to them and they will find ways to use it.
    - nradov 5y ago
      If society as a whole is being hurt then that should be addressed through the legislature, not the courts.
- aiilns 5y ago
  Silently gathering data about a person's activities without their knowledge is antithetical to human dignity and people's freedom. It's no accident that no tracking is done in the open or asks for permission. Money is not the definite metric by which everything can or should measured. The most concerning part from the article IMO is this: > the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment rejects the Claimants’ argument that the loss of control of personal data has an intrinsic value capable of compensation.
1cvmask 5y ago
The cost of frivolous lawsuits is always higher outside the US. In the rest of the world it is regulators and governments who enforce laws on companies and in many of them the government fines the company for damages and takes all the money itself.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  In most cases there isn't a significant harm to any individual. If the government has been set up as a reliable enforcer of the laws then it makes more sense for it to collect the fines -- as with being personally fined for a breach of the law (eg., fined for speeding). The US is a strange place -- its unclear whether its use of elections "in everything" has caused this partisan distrust of every last elemenet of government -- or whether it would be worse without it. I tend to see the preference for more direct democracy, as in the US, as corrosive. (And yet, you also have the most tyrannical element of gov: a court supreme over the legislature).
  - barney54 5y ago
    What does this ruling in the UK have to do with the US?
    - l33t2328 5y ago
      For one thing, Google is a US company.
      - netizen-936824 5y ago
        Okay? Still not sure how that connects the parent's rant on US government structure
    - simonh 5y ago
      OP contrasted this ruling with the situation in the US, and the comment was expanding on that point.
  - xpe 5y ago
avs733 5y ago
to be clear to the primarily US readership...the UK supreme court.
- sigzero 5y ago
  The money sign in the title was a give away but it really should have said "UK Supreme Court's..." to be very clear.
throwawaymanbot 5y ago
Whose Supreme Court? US or UK?

59 points by the-dude 5y ago

Valid points in the ruling - no evidence of financial damage or distress. Good outcome. Let the downvoting begin!

It's hard to see how this "sends shockwaves through [the] legal community." The ruling essentially upheld the status quo in the UK, and doesn't even definitively do that. It's pretty unsurprising.

xpe 5y ago
On what basis do you say this is the status quo? Link?
- aardvark179 5y ago
  Not the GP but. Mass action lawsuits are not common under English law, and opt-out mass action lawsuits are only allowed in a small number of legal areas, competition law and data protection being two. I think Merrick vs Mastercard has been one of the biggest and was to do with excessive card fees so is easy to demonstrate what the harm to each victim would be. The Google case doesn’t sound like it has significantly changed things in this area.

xibalba 5y ago

> “ failed to provide evidence of financial damages and mental distress being caused to any individual iPhone users.” Glad to see some reason exists in the world. To read HN comments, one would think cookies and tracking pixels were robbing peoples’ bank accounts or publicizing their illicit affairs to friends and family.

sumtechguy 5y ago
Yeah this is sort of like littering. One wrapper on the ground does not mean much. But millions of them do. Which is basically what many of these companies have done. Basically lots of 'little' things that add up to a big thing. In this particular case it sounds like the one who brought the case did not sufficiently show the court that any harm had occurred? Reading the output to the case probably would be better here instead of playing telephone with an article and why it is 'sending shockwaves'. This sounds more like 'you did not make your case try again some other time'.
- crispyambulance 5y ago
  > lots of 'little' things that add up to a big thing. Yes. Another way to think about it is that we have a situation where people/citizens as a whole are hurt rather than individuals. It boils down to the argument of whether or not these concerns apply to individuals that have "nothing to hide". I say yes, it does. What happened with Facebook and Cambridge Analytica is an example of what the future holds. Was any specific individual "hurt" by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica providing massive amounts of information to bad-actors running disinformation campaigns? No. Was democracy as we know it hurt? Yes. The same infrastructure used to effectively sell us toothpaste and other consumer goods, is something that has been on the wish list of autocratic despots for decades. This stuff is irresistible to them and they will find ways to use it.
  - nradov 5y ago
    If society as a whole is being hurt then that should be addressed through the legislature, not the courts.
aiilns 5y ago
Silently gathering data about a person's activities without their knowledge is antithetical to human dignity and people's freedom. It's no accident that no tracking is done in the open or asks for permission. Money is not the definite metric by which everything can or should measured. The most concerning part from the article IMO is this: > the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment rejects the Claimants’ argument that the loss of control of personal data has an intrinsic value capable of compensation.

1cvmask 5y ago

The cost of frivolous lawsuits is always higher outside the US. In the rest of the world it is regulators and governments who enforce laws on companies and in many of them the government fines the company for damages and takes all the money itself.

mjburgess 5y ago
In most cases there isn't a significant harm to any individual. If the government has been set up as a reliable enforcer of the laws then it makes more sense for it to collect the fines -- as with being personally fined for a breach of the law (eg., fined for speeding). The US is a strange place -- its unclear whether its use of elections "in everything" has caused this partisan distrust of every last elemenet of government -- or whether it would be worse without it. I tend to see the preference for more direct democracy, as in the US, as corrosive. (And yet, you also have the most tyrannical element of gov: a court supreme over the legislature).
- barney54 5y ago
  What does this ruling in the UK have to do with the US?
  - l33t2328 5y ago
    For one thing, Google is a US company.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      Okay? Still not sure how that connects the parent's rant on US government structure
  - simonh 5y ago
    OP contrasted this ruling with the situation in the US, and the comment was expanding on that point.
- xpe 5y ago

avs733 5y ago

to be clear to the primarily US readership...the UK supreme court.

sigzero 5y ago
The money sign in the title was a give away but it really should have said "UK Supreme Court's..." to be very clear.

throwawaymanbot 5y ago

Whose Supreme Court? US or UK?