Google, period tracker app Flo to pay $56 million settlement
Google and Flo Health, the company behind the popular period tracking app, have agreed to pay $56 million to settle a lawsuit claiming they shared users' sensitive menstrual and pregnancy info for targeted advertising, despite promising to keep it confidential.
The deal was announced this week in a San Francisco federal court and still needs a judge's sign-off.
Google will cover most of the settlement costs
Google will cover $48 million of the settlement, while Flo Health pays $8 million.
The lawsuit said users' private data was shared between late 2016 and early 2019, breaking California privacy laws.
Both companies deny doing anything wrong; Google settled before the trial began, and Flo settled shortly before the trial ended.
Meta (Facebook's parent) was also found liable by a jury in August and plans to appeal; earlier, analytics firm Flurry settled out for $3.5 million.