Claimants have vowed to appeal against a “disappointing” High Court ruling on Monday that blocked their multi-million pound challenge against Google.

The tech giant was accused of unlawfully collecting the personal data of over 4.4 million iPhone users in the UK by bypassing the default ­privacy settings on the Apple device between June 2011 and February 2012.

The claimants stated that each person affected could claim £750 each if their action was successful.

Google won the first round of this case after the High Court dismissed the claim, allowing it to avoid a compensation bill of up to £3.3bn.

The judgment found that Google’s actions were arguably “wrongful, and a breach of duty”.

However, Mr Justice Warby ruled that each class action member may not have been affected in the same way and that claimants failed to prove that they suffered “damages” under data protection rules.

Claimants alleged Google violated ­iPhone privacy by effectively tricking devices into releasing personal data from the Safari web browser. This has become known as the “Safari Workaround”.

They told the court that data collected included race, physical and mental health, political leanings, sexuality, social class, financial, shopping habits and location data.

The collective High Court action was led by former Which? director Richard Lloyd. Hugh Tomlinson QC represented Mr Lloyd alongside law firm Mishcon de Reya. Anthony White QC represented Google alongside law firm Pinsent Masons.