Google agrees to pay $392 million worth of claims as users from 40 states believe that they have been misled to think that their location tracking was turned off.
The settlement also required the company to notify users when their location tracking is enabled, and to instruct them how to turn it off starting next year.
Google Says It Has Since Corrected Its Location Tracking Practices
A group of attorneys general from the states of Oregon, New York, Florida, Nebraska, Washington, and other states joined forces in their largest consumer privacy settlement yet.
According to The Verge, the coalition of attorneys general opened an investigation against Google in response to a 2018 report that claims that the company track's users' locations without their knowledge.
The reports by the Associated Press say that Google tricked users into thinking that their location tracking had been switched off, and continued to use their information to sell personalized ads.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, in a press release, stated that Google had prioritized profit over users' privacy as they have been deceptive for years now.
This is in connection with the allegation that the company has been misleading its users from 2014 up until 2019, which Google denies.
In a blog post published on Monday, Google said that the reports were based on outdated product policies that have already been addressed.
It also assured users that there is a continuous rollout of new features to ensure that users can make informed choices about their data, The Verge reports.
According to Tech Crunch, a spokesperson for Google told them that consistent with the company's recent improvements, they have decided to settle the investigation for $392 million.
Furthermore, the tech giant has also promised to provide new controls that lets users easily turn off their Location History and Web and App activity settings, and delete data simply.
Moreover, Google said that they will create a more comprehensive information hub to assist users. And that they will continue deleting location history data for users moving forward.
This Was Not The First Time Google Had A Settlement For Its Location Tracking Practices
Google's recent settlement for complaints from users of iPhone and Android devices all over America were a response to their violation of state consumer privacy laws.
However, Tech Crunch says that this is not the first time the company has agreed to pay a large sum of money for alleged misuse of their users' location tracking and data.
In fact, only last month, Google also agreed to pay the state of Arizona $85 million in a separate lawsuit for collecting users' location information without their consent.
The search engine also faced a similar suit from the District of Columbia, Texas, Indiana, and Washington in January for "dark patterns" and the deceptive use of tracking users' physical location, CNN Business writes.
For Goole, data is collected to curate target advertisements for users, and to build profiles of each one of them to do so.
In the wake of the recent controversy regarding the overturned ruling of Roe v. Wade, Google and similar tech giants were scrutinized for how their data could be used to track abortion seekers.
However, CNN Business reports that Google has pledged to delete their users' location history for abortion clinic visits, fertility clinic visits, and other visits that might be related to unwanted location tracking.
