In re Google Assistant Privacy Litigation

I. BACKGROUND

1 The seven Named Plaintiffs are residents of New York and California who allege they owned 2 Google Assistant-enabled devices during the Class Period. See Fourth Amended Complaint 3 (“4AC”), ECF No. 141 ¶¶ 18–75. Brekhus and Hernandez are residents of California. See id. ¶¶ 45, 4 61. Defendants are Delaware companies with their principal place of business in California, who 5 manufacture and sell hardware and software products. See id. ¶¶ 4, 76–77. 6 Plaintiffs’ claims pertain to Google’s alleged privacy violations related to its hardware 7 devices capable of running the Google Assistant software (“Google Assistant-enabled devices” or 8 “GAEDs”), including the Google Home devices owned by Brekhus and Hernandez. Google 9 Assistant allows users to activate and interact with these devices using voice commands or other 10 forms of manual activation, like pressing a button. See id. ¶ 4. To use a GAED, a user must sign up 11 for a Google Account and agree to Google’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Id. Plaintiffs 12 allege that based on Google’s public representations, Terms of Service, and Plaintiffs’ reasonable 13 expectation of privacy, GAEDs were…