Google will pay $392 million to 40 states in largest-ever US consumer privacy settlement

K. Holt@krisholtNovember 14, 2022 2:07 PMIn this posting: privacy, news, equipment, google, locale monitoringAndrew Kelly / reuters

Google has agreed to pay out $391.5 million to settle charges brought forth by 40 attorneys normal. They accused the company of misleading buyers into believing they experienced turned off site monitoring in their configurations, but Google continued to collect info about their actions. As part of the settlement, Google has agreed to “drastically boost” its place monitoring disclosures and consumer controls setting up upcoming calendar year.

“For several years Google has prioritized income above their users’ privateness,” Oregon attorney common Ellen Rosenblum, who led the circumstance along with Nebraska AG Doug Peterson, said in a assertion. “They have been crafty and deceptive. Customers considered they experienced turned off their locale tracking capabilities on Google, but the business continued to secretly file their actions and use that data for advertisers.”

The AGs opened the investigation in 2018 next an Related Push report suggesting that Google tracks locale knowledge even soon after users request it not to. The report indicated that turning off the Location Record placing did not stop Google from recognizing where a user was. Some applications, these kinds of as Maps and Look for, continue to developed a snapshot of their area on their Google account. While it was probable to clear away this data from one’s Google account, performing so was “laborious,” the AP observed.

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The AGs identified that Google violated condition shopper protection guidelines given that at the very least 2014 by deceptive people about its spot tracking tactics. They claimed that the corporation “perplexed its users about the extent to which they could restrict Google’s spot monitoring by altering their account and device configurations.” They mentioned that this is the greatest-at any time client privateness settlement by US states (Meta, then recognized as Facebook, agreed to pay out $5 billion to settle FTC rates about the Cambridge Analytica scandal). 

According to a push launch from the Oregon AG’s place of work, Google has agreed to:

• Present supplemental data to consumers when they change a location-relevant account setting “on” or “off”

• Make important information about locale monitoring unavoidable for people (i.e., not hidden) and

• Give buyers comprehensive facts about the styles of location data Google collects and how it is made use of at an increased “Location Technologies” webpage.

Very last month, Google agreed to shell out Arizona $85 million to settle a 2020 lawsuit accusing it of monitoring consumers for targeted adverts even following they switched off place info options. The enterprise is going through other place monitoring fits submitted by AGs in Washington DC, Texas, Washington and Indiana.

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