A federal judge in California dismissed privacy claims by three people who called Home Depot’s customer-service line and alleged that Google’s Cloud Contact Center AI listened to their calls without consent. The October 22 order gives James Fox, Peter Samish and Christopher Barulich until November 12, 2026, to amend their claims. It resolves pleading deficiencies under the California Invasion of Privacy Act, rather than establishing that every alleged use of the recordings was lawful. In re: Google Cloud Contact Center AI Privacy Litigation
Consent and intent led to different questions
U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin treated the callers’ circumstances separately. Fox and Samish had Home Depot accounts and, according to the order, agreed to terms incorporating a privacy statement that disclosed sharing customer-care recordings with service providers. The judge concluded that the statement covered Google’s access in providing the alleged call-assistance service. Barulich, whose agreement to that policy was not established, plausibly alleged lack of consent; the common practice of recording service calls did not itself establish consent to sharing his call with an unannounced third party. In re: Google Cloud Contact Center AI Privacy Litigation; In re: Google Cloud Contact Center AI Privacy Litigation
The remaining problem affected all three callers. The court held that their Section 631(a) claims required plausible allegations that Google intended to listen without consent, not simply that its product intentionally listened. The complaint’s general assertions of intentional tapping and willful recording did not supply those facts. The court nevertheless rejected the proposition that a contract requiring Home Depot to obtain consent would always foreclose liability: additional facts might show that Google knew consent was missing. In re: Google Cloud Contact Center AI Privacy Litigation; In re: Google Cloud Contact Center AI Privacy Litigation
The order also addressed the accountholders’ allegation that Google used recordings for its own purposes, including AI training. For the particular Section 631(a)(3) theory before the court, subsequent use depended on a predicate violation in obtaining the information. Because Fox and Samish had not plausibly pleaded that Google’s initial access lacked consent, the alleged later use did not save that claim. The order did not decide every possible privacy or contractual theory concerning model training. In re: Google Cloud Contact Center AI Privacy Litigation
Other plaintiffs were sent to arbitration
In a separate October 22 order, Lin required Paolo Roméo Samaco, Chelsea Marquez and India Price to arbitrate and stayed their claims. The court allowed Google to enforce agreements those plaintiffs had with Verizon, Uber and Discover under California’s equitable-estoppel doctrine, reasoning that the privacy claims were intertwined with the incorporated privacy policies and alleged coordinated conduct. Those claims were stayed for arbitration, not adjudicated on their ultimate merits. In re: Google Cloud Contact Center AI Privacy Litigation; In re: Google Cloud Contact Center AI Privacy Litigation
Why the records matter
Analysis. The rulings make the versions and scope of consent documents central to this AI dispute. For teams assessing similar allegations, a useful factual record distinguishes the caller’s agreement, the provider’s access, the purpose of any subsequent use, and what the provider knew about consent. An AI feature description alone does not answer those separate questions. That is an editorial inference from these rulings, not a universal compliance rule or a finding about how Google actually trained a model. In re: Google Cloud Contact Center AI Privacy Litigation; In re: Google Cloud Contact Center AI Privacy Litigation
Procedural and source limits
The dismissal permits amendment and says the three Home Depot callers’ claims will remain dismissed with prejudice if no amended complaint is filed by November 12. The separate arbitration stay remains distinct. The public CourtListener docket-entry snapshot checked October 26 returned both October 22 orders; that limited snapshot cannot establish the absence of an unindexed later filing. This report relies on the complete orders, not an independent inspection of the underlying calls, contracts or training systems. In re: Google Cloud Contact Center AI Privacy Litigation; In re: Google Cloud Contact Center AI Privacy Litigation
Sources
In re: Google Cloud Contact Center AI Privacy Litigation. District Court, N.D. California. 3:23-cv-05437. Filed 2026-10-22. Unknown.
In re: Google Cloud Contact Center AI Privacy Litigation. District Court, N.D. California. 3:23-cv-05437. Filed 2026-10-22. Unknown.
AI-assisted reporting based on court records retrieved through CourtListener. This analysis is produced by eDiscovery Decoder; it is not reviewed or endorsed by Free Law Project.