Google has agreed to a preliminary $68 million settlement in a class action alleging its Assistant unlawfully recorded and shared private conversations. Filed Jan. 23 and reported by Reuters Jan. 26, the deal requires a judge’s approval. Plaintiffs claimed misactivated recordings—known as “false accepts”—were used for targeted advertising. While Google denied wrongdoing, it opted to settle to avoid protracted litigation.

In the third quarter, Google’s total revenue rose 16% year-over-year to $102.3 billion, up from $88.2 billion in Q3 2024. Core advertising revenue—covering search, YouTube ads, subscriptions and platforms—grew 14% to $87.1 billion. Search revenue alone increased 15% to $56.6 billion, while YouTube advertising delivered $10.3 billion, also a 15% gain.

Google Cloud revenue surged 34% year-over-year to $15.2 billion, up from $11.3 billion a year ago, marking an acceleration from 32% growth in Q2. Segment operating income doubled from $1.9 billion in Q3 2024 to $3.6 billion this quarter. Backlog expanded 82% year-over-year to $155 billion, with a sequential increase of 46%, underscoring strong enterprise demand for AI-powered cloud services.

Capital expenditures reached $24.0 billion in Q3, up from $13.1 billion a year earlier, driven by investments in servers, data centers and networking to support AI initiatives. Management now forecasts full-year 2025 capex of $91–93 billion, versus prior guidance of $85 billion. Investors should monitor whether AI Mode’s daily active users—now over 75 million in the U.S. with weekly queries doubling—and the Gemini app’s 650 million monthly active users translate into sufficient revenue gains to justify this spending.