Google Chrome Users Want New Look At Class Certification Denial

Some Google Chrome users want the Ninth Circuit to quickly take a second look at whether the web browser’s corporate proprietor can argue they implicitly agreed to its data collection practices to defeat class certification.

The users’ certification bid failed after the US District Court for the Northern District of California said that how individuals understood Google LLC’s purported privacy promises would render a class suit improper. The proposed class asked the trial-level court on Monday to certify the ruling for interlocutory appeal.

The users are also contesting how Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers determined that they failed to provide the court a enforceable promise Google broke. They said Rogers should’ve taken judicial notice of changes to Google’s privacy promises after finding its original pledge was no longer in effect.

The proposed class contest the tech company’s practice of collecting the data of Chrome users who decline to sync their browser with their Google account.

The Alphabet Inc. unit had originally defeated the suit on summary judgment asserting a consent defense, only for the Ninth Circuit to revive the case, saying that there was a material dispute over whether users consented.

But the tech company convinced the lower court that its purported privacy promises had many sources, and if it asserted an implied consent defense, a factfinder would have to determine how each person understood what Google pledged to do.

Terms of Service

Rogers said the users couldn’t move forward with an injunction class because the once contractual promises of the Chrome Privacy Notice moved to non-contractual documents—collectively detailing “privacy in Chrome"—and the proposed class failed to identify an ongoing pledge from Google to avoid collecting data

Among other things, the users argued that Google’s terms of service limited the extent that the tech company could reduce privacy rights without express consent of the proposed class members.

The users want the Ninth Circuit to review whether Google could raise an implied consent defense against claims it expressly breached a contract under California law at all, and also whether the relevant reasonable person inquiry is an objective rather than individualized one.

The motion said that other judges in the District of Northern California have said that the implied consent defense can be resolved on a class-wide basis.

Simmons Hanly Conroy LLP, DiCello Levitt LLP, and Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP represent the plaintiffs. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP represents Google.

The case is Calhoun v. Google LLC, N.D. Cal., No. 4:20-cv-05146, motion for interlocutory appeal 7/14/25.