Google agrees to $93 million settlement in California location privacy lawsuit
Google has agreed to pay $93 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the US state of California over allegations that the company’s location privacy practices misled consumers and violated laws on consumer protection.
“Our investigation found that Google told its users one thing – that it would no longer track their location once they opted out – but did the opposite and continued to track its users’ movements for its own commercial gain,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said. said.
The lawsuit follows revelations that the company continued to track users’ locations despite stating otherwise that this information would not be stored if the “Location History” setting was turned off.
The California complaint alleged that Google collected location data through other sources and misled users about their ability to opt out of personalized ads targeted to their location.
With Google making more than $220 billion in revenue in 2022 from advertising alone, this development is the latest in a series of financial settlements reached by the Mountain View-based company to resolve several lawsuits filed by different states of the UNITED STATES.
Last November, it agreed to pay $391.5 million to settle similar complaints filed by 40 U.S. states. Then, in January 2023, he agreed to pay a total of $29.5 million to settle two different lawsuits brought by Indiana and Washington, DC.
Subsequently, in May 2023, the company ruler with Washington State for $39.9 million for the same reasons. He is currently facing a tracking suit in the state of Texas.
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The tech giant, which has admitted no wrongdoing, has maintained that they are based on “outdated product policies that we changed years ago.” He also agreed to provide more controls and transparency to users over location data.
The development comes two weeks after Austrian nonprofit NOYB (short for None of Your Business) filed three complaints against Google-owned Fitbit for forcing new users of its app to consent to money transfers. sensitive data outside the European Union who may not have the right. same level of protection as the block.
“Contrary to legal requirements, users do not even have the possibility to withdraw their consent,” he adds. added. “Instead, they must delete their account completely to stop the illegal processing.”
