Class Action Lawsuit Claims Google Shares Vast Amounts of Consumer Data with ‘Most Scrutinized’ Chinese Tech Companies

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A proposed class action lawsuit alleges that Google illegally transmits vast amounts of private consumer information without meaningful notice or valid consent to “some of the most scrutinized” Chinese tech companies, including entities owned and/or controlled by the government of the People’s Republic of China.

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The 36-page lawsuit accuses Google of violating the federal government’s April 2025 Bulk Sensitive Data Rule, which “categorically prohibits” the commercial transfer of Americans’ sensitive personal data, including IP addresses and other online identifiers, to entities subject to the jurisdiction of “countries of concern, including China.”

The case charges that Google is “liable to every American whose communications it intercepted and whose data it transmitted to covered foreign persons,” namely through its operation of the world’s largest ecosystem of ad-tracking technologies, embedded on likely millions of websites. The “substantial majority” of Google’s roughly $307.4 billion in annual revenue stems from its online advertising business, the suit highlights.

According to the complaint, Google’s advertising profits are generated largely through the buying and selling of online ad space through real-time bidding auctions, where advertisers compete in instantaneous auctions to place the highest bid for what ad is shown to a user. The complaint elaborates that data collection is achieved via third-party trackers, pieces of code built into web pages that collect extensive information about a user’s interactions with a website, and cookies, persistent identifiers that store data in a user’s browser as tied to a web address.

Together, trackers and cookies enable an advertising company to learn what a user is doing on a website and link that activity to their behavior on other websites, the filing says.

Related Reading: $135M Google Settlement Resolves Class Action Lawsuit Over Alleged Android Cellular Data Collection, Transfers

Per the lawsuit, Google’s real-time bidding infrastructure acts as a hub for “identity propagation” across the entire worldwide advertising ecosystem. The advertising entities formally approved to participate in Google’s advertising infrastructure include three that have been at the center of foreign privacy concerns in the United States: Pangle, operated by ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, MediaGo and Temu.

The lawsuit maintains that these companies are subject to Chinese legislation concerning national intelligence and data security that may require cooperation with government authorities to disclose private user data.

“Google’s advertising and cookie syncing infrastructure is deployed across a vast number of websites spanning sensitive categories including health, religion, parenting, finance, and many others,” the lawsuit reads. “In each instance, Google intercepts the contents of users’ communications with these websites and transmits their persistent identifiers and personal data to Chinese-affiliated advertising partners without any meaningful notice to or consent from the user.”

The Google class action lawsuit seeks to represent all individuals in the United States whose electronic communications with apps and websites using Google’s ad technology were intercepted and whose personal information was disclosed by Google to Pangle, MediaGo, Temu, or other covered persons on or after April 8, 2025.

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