The US Supreme Court declined Alphabet’s bid to dismiss a lawsuit by shareholders, accusing the tech giant of fraudulently failing to disclose a security issue that left private user data exposed to third-parties.

The lawsuit, led by the state of Rhode Island, was filed following a 2018 Wall Street Journal expose that said Google has concealed its breaching of the private data for 500,000 Google+ users.

After this article, US$50 billion was wiped from Alphabet’s market value, prompting the shareholder lawsuit.

The suit was dismissed in February, 2000, prompting an appeal by the plaintiffs.

In June 2021, the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals decided the suit held “strong inferences” that then-CEO Larry Page and successor Sundar Pichai knew about the issue and chose to conceal it from investors.