A federal judge in San Francisco has awarded nearly $147 million in legal fees to the plaintiffs’ lawyers who won a landmark $425 million jury verdict against Alphabet’s Google in a data privacy trial — one of the largest fee awards in a class action privacy case in American legal history.

US District Judge Richard Seeborg granted the fee request Friday by law firms Boies Schiller Flexner, Susman Godfrey, and Morgan & Morgan, over objections from some class members. In the same ruling, Seeborg denied Google’s bid to throw out the jury’s verdict entirely.

The Original Verdict

A jury found Google liable in September 2025 for secretly collecting app activity data from millions of users who had explicitly disabled a tracking feature called “Web & App Activity.” The $425 million verdict was described by the plaintiffs’ legal team as likely the largest in a data privacy class action that resulted in a trial verdict rather than a pre-trial settlement.

The case — Rodriguez v. Google — covered approximately 98 million class members whose data was allegedly collected without their knowledge despite their privacy settings indicating otherwise.

Why $147 Million in Fees Is Justified — And Controversial

The three law firms argued they devoted more than 49,670 hours to the litigation over several years, pursuing a case that most firms would have considered too risky to take to trial against one of the world’s most powerful corporations.

The legal team included veteran litigator David Boies, who billed at $2,730 per hour in 2026.

Judge Seeborg acknowledged the uncomfortable math in his ruling. While approving the full fee request, he noted openly that the award creates an imbalance between what the lawyers receive and what individual class members actually walk away with.

“The lawyers are being handsomely rewarded for their success, even as each of the 98 million class members will walk away with less than $5,” Seeborg wrote. “That is, however, a consequence of the policy choice to use the class action device to remedy widespread torts.”

The judge said the request was “without question, extraordinary, but it is warranted by the extraordinary nature of the case as well as by the exemplary performance of counsel.”

Only 269 of the 98 million class members formally objected to the fee request — a figure the plaintiffs’ team cited as evidence of broad support for the overall compensation structure.

Google’s Arguments — And What the Judge Decided

Google has denied any wrongdoing throughout the litigation and says it will appeal the verdict. The company argued that the plaintiffs “presented no survey evidence, expert testimony, or other uniform evidence establishing that users were actually misled by Google’s disclosures.”

On Friday, Seeborg denied Google’s separate request for a ruling that would have granted the company a summary win — effectively throwing out the jury’s verdict — without a new trial. The court also denied a request from the plaintiffs’ side for a new trial on part of their lawsuit.

The result leaves the $425 million verdict intact while Google’s appeal works through the courts.

What This Means for the 98 Million Class Members

If you used an Android device or Google apps and had your Web & App Activity tracking disabled between the relevant time period, you may be a class member. With 98 million people in the class and $425 million in total damages — minus the $147 million in legal fees — individual payouts work out to less than $5 per person.

This is a common outcome in large-scale privacy class actions where the harm is widespread but diffuse. The real impact of these cases is typically not the individual payout but the behavioral change they force on corporate defendants — in this case, how Google handles privacy settings for hundreds of millions of users going forward.

The Broader Data Privacy Litigation Landscape

The Google verdict is part of a growing wave of privacy class actions targeting major technology companies:

  • Meta agreed to an $18 billion settlement with nearly all US states just this week over its treatment of children on Facebook and Instagram
  • TikTok faces ongoing litigation in Iowa and other states over addictive design features targeting minors
  • Google also faces separate litigation alongside Meta over a Los Angeles jury’s $6 million verdict finding both companies negligent in platform design

Privacy attorneys say the Rodriguez v. Google verdict has set a new benchmark for data privacy trials and may encourage plaintiffs’ firms to take similar cases to trial rather than accepting lower pre-trial settlements.

Google said it will appeal. A timeline for that appeal has not been set.

InjuryWatch News will continue tracking data privacy litigation and its impact on consumers.