Google is facing another legal blow in the United States after a jury in San Jose, California, found that the tech giant misused Android smartphone users’ data without permission and must pay over $314.6 million in damages.

The class-action verdict marks a significant moment in the broader fight over consumer data rights, transparency in technology services, and the unchecked power of Big Tech.

The jury ruled in favor of approximately 14 million California Android users, agreeing that Google secretly sent and received data from idle Android devices without user consent. The plaintiffs argued that Google profited from these unauthorized data transfers—largely to fuel its advertising business—while consumers were left to bear the cost, particularly through their mobile data plans.

The lawsuit, which dates back to 2019, accused Google of placing a “mandatory and unavoidable burden” on users for its own benefit, with data being collected even when users were not actively using their phones. That behavior, the suit contended, constituted a violation of California’s privacy and consumer protection laws.

The decision represents one of the largest consumer privacy verdicts ever handed down against Google and underlines the growing legal challenges the company faces around data privacy and consumer rights.

Google to Appeal

In a statement, Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said the company plans to appeal the verdict, arguing that the decision “misunderstands services that are critical to the security, performance, and reliability of Android devices.” Google further argued that Android users had consented to data collection in the company’s terms of service and privacy policy and that there was no actual harm done to users.

However, the jury disagreed, finding that the data collection—without clear and explicit user authorization—constituted a form of digital overreach. The damages were calculated based on the mobile data costs incurred by users, even if individually small, that collectively formed a significant financial impact.

National and Global Implications

While this class-action case is limited to California residents, it may pave the way for larger legal consequences. A separate class-action lawsuit has been filed in federal court in San Jose on behalf of Android users in the other 49 U.S. states. That case is scheduled to go to trial in April 2026 and could expose Google to billions of dollars in additional liabilities if the federal court finds similarly.

The California ruling comes as Google continues to battle a wave of antitrust lawsuits both in the United States and across Europe.

Part of a Pattern of Google’s Mounting Legal Pressure

This latest judgment adds to a growing list of antitrust and privacy lawsuits targeting Google’s core businesses. In the U.S., Google is already defending:

• A landmark antitrust case from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which accuses the company of using illegal tactics to maintain its search engine monopoly.
• A separate DOJ lawsuit, filed in 2023, targeting Google’s digital advertising business, alleging that the company engaged in anti-competitive conduct by controlling multiple sides of the ad-tech stack.
• Multiple state-led lawsuits, including from attorneys general in Texas and other states, alleging Google inflated ad prices and suppressed competition through its dominance in online advertising.

In Europe, the company is also under intense scrutiny:

• In 2022, Google was fined €4.125 billion by the European Commission for abusing its market dominance in Android, forcing manufacturers to pre-install Google services.
• The European Commission is currently probing Google’s ad tech business, part of the broader enforcement of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which aims to curtail the power of dominant digital platforms.

The California jury’s verdict reflects a larger shift in how courts, regulators, and the public are starting to view Big Tech’s data practices. Even if users click “agree” on long privacy policies, the legal system is showing signs that blanket consent may no longer shield companies from accountability—especially when background data collection occurs without meaningful transparency or user control.

As the digital economy becomes increasingly embedded in daily life, the ruling is expected to set a precedent for how consumer data costs are measured and what constitutes informed consent in the mobile age.

Google is expected to appeal the decision, and the company’s legal team is likely to argue that its practices are industry standard and necessary for ensuring reliable service performance. But the broader issue is that Google’s core business models, particularly those reliant on targeted advertising and user data, are coming under renewed legal threat.

With federal litigation looming, and similar regulatory scrutiny mounting overseas, this case could become a key inflection point in the broader effort to redefine the digital contract between technology companies and their users.

The broad sentiment: “The Director General of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Segun Ajayi-Kadiri, has intensified calls for the Federal Government to fully privatize Nigeria’s state-owned refineries, describing them as symbols of waste, inefficiency, and entrenched mismanagement: ‘Those four refineries are a pure drain on the Nigerian economy, and it is not fair to the Nigerian people…The government should just sell these refineries. Give them to private sector people who will run them efficiently and be able to deliver. When something belongs to everybody, it belongs to nobody.’”

That said, after the outcome we have seen on the privatization of NEPA, the electricity agency, I want the government to be nuanced on the whole construct of privatization in Nigeria.  Russia was a fading country under Boris Yeltsin who was privatizing everything, but when Putin came, and recovered some of those assets, from the private mafia, Russia is a better country today economically. Look at China, governments run things, and they deliver. Some of the largest construction companies in the world are owned by Chinese governments.  Simply, even the public sector can deliver!

What do these countries do differently for their public sectors to be working? Three things: merit, honesty and pragmatism in the leadership system. Those three things work in most systems – democracy, military-cracy or whatever. Because Nigeria does not want to institutionalize those in the system, people can push to be selling everything.  Unfortunately, if you do privatization outside those three tenets, even the privatization regime will fail. In other words, if the privatization process is not based on merit, honesty and pragmatism, the whole process will fail.

The good news for Nigeria is that we’re liberating our economics making it possible for MTN, Airtel and Glo to eat Nitel without having to acquire Nitel. And possibly Dangote Refinery will make the national refineries irrelevant by 2027! But if we want to get into the game as a nation, especially on other areas, we must investigate the root causes of why Nigeria is not getting many things done. If you do not fix the issues, even privatized companies out of them will fade as we have seen with NEPA! In this piece, I share the core anchors of great nations.

Ndubuisi Ekekwe’s “A Greater Nation” Presidential Campaign

The Director General of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Segun Ajayi-Kadiri, has intensified calls for the Federal Government to fully privatise Nigeria’s state-owned refineries, describing them as symbols of waste, inefficiency, and entrenched mismanagement.

His comments, made during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, echo a growing national frustration over the repeated cycle of government spending on unproductive refinery rehabilitation efforts.

Ajayi-Kadiri noted that the continued state ownership of the refineries—located in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna—has not only drained public resources but failed to provide any meaningful return to the Nigerian people.

“Those four refineries are a pure drain on the Nigerian economy, and it is not fair to the Nigerian people,” he said. “The government should just sell these refineries. Give them to private sector people who will run them efficiently and be able to deliver. When something belongs to everybody, it belongs to nobody.”

His call for full privatization comes amid long-standing criticism of the government’s spending habits, particularly on the moribund refineries that have continued to gulp public funds without producing refined petroleum products.

Ajayi-Kadiri echoes the deep-seated anger and disillusionment shared by a vast majority of Nigerians who view the repeated promises of refinery revitalization as costly illusions. Over the years, the government has poured nearly $3 billion into refurbishing these refineries, with no tangible output to show for it.

The Port Harcourt refinery alone received a $1.5 billion rehabilitation investment, awarded in 2021. That same year, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) announced that it had spent over N100 billion on refinery repairs—yet none of the facilities refined a single barrel of crude. The Warri and Kaduna refineries were jointly allocated another $1.48 billion for their own rehabilitation programmes. These huge capital injections have delivered negligible outcomes, leading many Nigerians to question the rationale for continuing public ownership.

The combined output of Nigeria’s state-owned refineries has remained at or near zero for years, forcing the country to depend almost entirely on imported petroleum products—a costly contradiction for one of the world’s top oil producers.

“We are the sixth-largest producer of crude oil in the world, yet we suffer,” Ajayi-Kadiri said. “If you completely go private, it will be difficult for anyone to steal. It will be difficult to be unaccountable.”

Dangote Refinery: Promise or Monopoly?

The call for privatization comes at a time when the privately owned Dangote Refinery in Lagos is beginning to dominate discourse around Nigeria’s refining capacity. The $19 billion facility has been hailed as a potential game-changer in reducing Nigeria’s dependence on imports, but its emergence has also stirred fears of a market monopoly.

Ajayi-Kadiri dismissed those concerns, arguing that if the other four government-owned refineries were handed over to the private sector and brought into operation, they would naturally serve as competitors to Dangote.

“I do not subscribe to the view that we are creating a monopoly. Those four other refineries are potential competitors. We’ve been told that one is working, then again told that it’s not. Give them to people who will ensure they actually work,” he said.

The MAN boss also outlined other urgent reforms needed to restore industrial growth, beginning with the full implementation and funding of the naira-for-crude oil policy. He also called for major investments in the power sector to resolve the inefficiencies of Nigeria’s distribution companies (DisCos), which continue to leave manufacturers with little choice but to rely on costly alternative energy.

“They should ensure that the ‘naira for crude’ policy is sustainable, adequately funded, and supported. Also, we need to address the incompetent distribution companies and drive investment into the power sector to guarantee supply,” he said.

Ajayi-Kadiri revealed that manufacturers spent over N2 trillion on alternative energy sources in 2023 alone due to the unreliable electricity supply, which significantly drives up the cost of production and final prices of goods in the market.

Insecurity, he added, remains another key disincentive to investment and must be addressed urgently.

“Insecurity is a growing disincentive to investment. Businesses cannot thrive where safety is not guaranteed,” he said.

Fuel Subsidy Removal, Painful But Necessary

While acknowledging the harsh consequences of subsidy removal under President Tinubu’s administration, Ajayi-Kadiri stood by the policy, saying it was necessary to prevent economic collapse. Fuel prices have since surged beyond N600 per liter, triggering widespread inflation and hardship, but he remains optimistic that the prices will eventually fall.

“If Nigeria didn’t stop the subsidy, the subsidy would have stopped or killed us,” he said. “It is going to be better. I see the price coming down to N800, and that is what manufacturers want.”

Growing Clamor for Accountability

Ajayi-Kadiri’s call underscores an intensifying demand among Nigerian stakeholders for accountability in the management of public assets. With $3 billion already spent and little to show for it, many see the continued government control of the refineries as unsustainable and unjustifiable.

The message from MAN’s DG is that Nigerians are tired of watching taxpayer money poured into bottomless pits while poverty deepens and basic infrastructure remains broken. It’s time, he says, to hand over the keys to those who can actually make the engine run.