Google could be forced to pay up to £3billion in compensation to iPhone users if it loses a privacy battle that's been escalated to the Supreme Court.
The legal battle - which went before judges this week - centres around allegations that the technology firm secretly tracked the online activity of millions of iPhone users in England and Wales.
The class action is being brought forward by Richard Lloyd - a former director of consumer group Which? and as many as four million iPhone customers could be affected - with payouts of £750 each if it loses the case.
Lloyd alleges Google 'cookies' collected information on 4.4million iPhone users who used the Safari web browser between 2011 and 2012.
He claims the technology giant collected data on their health, race, ethnicity, sexuality and political affiliations - even though the users had chosen a 'do not track' privacy setting.
The allegations go on to claim that this data was then used to group people into categories for advertising purposes - although Google insists that no information was shared to third parties.
Lloyd, who is backed by campaign group Google You Owe Us, hopes to win between £1billion and £3billion in compensation for alleged breaches of the Data Protection Act.
The case was initially dismissed by the High Court, which ruled it was difficult to calculate how many people had been affected or whether they had suffered losses.
The decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2019, whereupon Google appealed and the case is now at the Supreme Court.
Antony White QC said claims had also been launched against Facebook and YouTube and a ruling in Lloyd's favour would 'open the floodgates' to further claims.
He said the alleged breaches had long ago ceased and a remedy already existed for any financial loss or distress.
A Google spokesman had this to say: "These claims relate to events that took place a decade ago and that we addressed at the time. We look forward to making our case in court."
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