Google explains to US judge its data scraping from court’s website

Lawyers for the Google users who are suing the company said its responses to the judge raise more questions than they answer. — AFP

A US judge known as a sharp critic of how tech companies treat consumer privacy was “disturbed” to learn from Google last month that even the search bar on the public website for her court is feeding user information to the company.

Now comes an explanation from Google after US District Judge Lucy Koh demanded one: The Alphabet Inc unit relies on its code embedded in the public web page that helps it serve up advertising targeted at visitors. The information collected on those visitors is also used to “maintain and improve Google services”, according to the company.