A long, winding lawsuit brought against Google by a small group of consumers was dismissed by a federal judge in California on Wednesday. Plaintiffs accused Google of breaching its own privacy policy by sharing user data indiscriminately, more recently focusing on the amount of personal data shared with app developers through the Play Store. For instance, Alice Svenson says far too much private data was shared with the developer of YCDroid when she bought the app for $1.77.

That information included her home address and zip code, phone number, and email address. After the lawsuit was filed, Google began limiting the data shared with developers. Ultimately, these and other claims were dismissed because, in the judge's view, they could not demonstrate any harm from Google's policies.

Since no plaintiff could prove that they suffered harm from Google's policy nor that Google or anyone else received undue profits because of it, Google's motion for dismissal was granted. And this time, after several past revisions to the complaint, it appears the court will hear no more.

The judge wrote, "you might think that after three years" the plaintiffs would have at least established that they have the legal standing to sue, "but you would be wrong."

Source: Reuters