by Arty Katkov via Sputniknews Image credit: © AP Photo / Jeff Chiu Google says it will defend itself against the claims and that plaintiffs consented to its privacy policy. On Friday, a federal judge denied a request by Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. to drop the case against it – this means it now faces a class-action suit seeking $5 billion, with users claiming that even when they turn off data collection in the Chrome web browser, other Google tools used by websites still collect their personal data. "The court concludes that Google did not notify users that Google engages in the alleged data collection while the user is in private browsing mode," US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, ruled, according to Bloomberg. Last June three customers filed a complaint alleging that Google has a "pervasive data tracking business," collecting their data not only in Chrome incognito mode but also when they browsed in private mode in Safari and other browsers. The complaint