Google has agreed to settle a $5 billion privacy lawsuit alleging that it spied on people who used the “incognito” mode in its Chrome browser — along with similar “private” modes in other browsers — to track their internet use.

The class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 said Google misled users into believing that it wouldn’t track their internet activities while using incognito mode. It argued that Google’s advertising technologies and other techniques continued to catalog details of users’ site visits and activities despite their use of supposedly “private” browsing.

The settlement, reached Thursday, must still be approved by a federal judge. Terms weren’t disclosed, but the suit originally sought $5 billion on behalf of users; lawyers for the plaintiffs said they expect to present the court with a final settlement agreement by Feb. 24.

Consulting firm McKinsey agrees to $78 million settlement

Consulting firm McKinsey and Co. has agreed to pay $78 million to settle claims from insurers and health care funds that its marketing work with Purdue Pharma helped fuel an opioid addiction crisis.

The agreement was revealed late Friday in documents filed in federal court in San Francisco. The settlement must still be approved by a judge. Under the agreement, McKinsey would establish a fund to reimburse insurers, benefit plans and others for their prescription opioid costs.

From 1999 to 2021, nearly 280,000 people in the U.S. died from overdoses of prescription opioids, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The insurers argued that McKinsey created aggressive marketing and sales tactics for prescription opioids, forcing it to pay more for them instead of cheaper, less addictive painkillers. McKinsey has denied wrongdoing.