If you have ever watched your monthly data allowance melt away even on days when your phone barely left your pocket, this story is for you. A new settlement proposal says that while many Android phones sat idle on nightstands and in backpacks, background systems were quietly sipping paid cellular data for the benefit of Google.
Now Google has agreed to a $135 million class action deal in federal court that aims to compensate more than 100 million Android users in the United States outside California and to rewrite how the company explains those invisible data transfers.
What the $135 million would actually do
According to the motion for preliminary approval filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Google would create a non-reversionary settlement fund of $135 million. None of that money can flow back to the company.
The proposed settlement class covers people in the United States who used Android phones with cellular plans from mobile carriers from November 2017 through the date of final judgment, excluding Californians who are already covered by a separate state case.
After attorneys’ fees, costs, administrative expenses, and possible service awards, the remainder would be paid out on a pro rata basis. Individual payments are capped at about $100 per person, although class counsel say they do not expect most users to reach that ceiling.
In practical terms, that means a typical user might see a modest electronic payment sent through services such as PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, or similar tools instead of a paper check.
How a quiet background feature became a legal fight
At the heart of the case is a simple question. When your phone is “doing nothing,” who gets to use the data you paid for.The plaintiffs say Android devices sent information to Google even when phones were idle, apps were closed, and screens were locked.
In their words, the operating system allegedly appropriated small amounts of paid cellular data “in purses and pockets” and on nightstands while people slept.
According to court filings, those background transfers supported Google services and advertising systems while leaving users to foot the bill through their data plans.To support that claim, the lawsuit drew on a 2018 study by a Vanderbilt University researcher that found idle Android phones sent frequent bursts of data to Google servers.
The legal theory is unusual. Rather than focusing only on privacy, the plaintiffs framed cellular data itself as a kind of property. In 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed that users plausibly alleged a property interest, noting that cellular data can be precisely measured and tied to a specific customer account.
That ruling opened the door for trial. It also raised the stakes for Google after a separate jury in California found the company liable in a related state case and awarded more than $314 million to roughly 14 million Android users there for similar idle data transfers.
Google has consistently pushed back. In responses to courts and the press, the company argues that these background communications are standard in the industry and support security and performance.
A spokesperson recently said the earlier verdict “misunderstands services that are critical to the security, performance, and reliability of Android devices” and described the federal claims as a mischaracterization of common practices.
What will change on your next Android setup
If the federal settlement wins approval, the biggest shift for everyday users will not be the one-time payout. It will be how plainly Android explains what is happening behind the scenes.
Under the proposed injunction, Google must revise its Google Play legal terms and help pages so they clearly state that certain system services often need network connectivity and may use cellular data in the background even when the screen is locked.
Those pages would also need to spell out that when the phone is not on Wi Fi, Google Play services can cause the device to exchange information with Google over cellular networks and that some of these transfers cannot be turned off.
New Android phones will show an added step in the setup flow. Users will see an explanation of these background transfers and an “accept” button that collects explicit consent before Google can rely on their cellular data for the challenged practices.
The company has also agreed to change or deactivate a system setting that previously appeared to let people block the disputed transfers through an “allow background data usage” toggle. Plaintiffs argued that this control did not actually stop the flows in question and therefore misled users who were trying to protect limited data plans.
For many people, the dollar amount they may eventually receive is small. The broader impact lies in signaling that those invisible megabytes matter. Similar pressure already pushed Google into a separate $68 million settlement over allegations that its smart speakers and phones recorded voice commands without proper consent through Google Assistant.
Taken together, these cases suggest that courts and regulators are starting to treat “background” activity on connected devices as something closer to a utility bill than a free side effect of modern technology. Every unseen ping can carry a small cost.
The official court filing was published on ClassAction.org.
