Break money and avoid disaster: Google settles the case of illegally tracking users' location for $390 million
CTOnews.com, Nov. 15 (Reuters)-Google, owned by Alphabet, will pay $391.5 million (about 2.784 billion yuan) to settle charges in 40 states that Google illegally tracked users' locations, the attorney general's office of Michigan said on Monday.
In addition to losing money, Google must be more transparent to consumers about when location tracking will take place and provide users with detailed information about location tracking data on a dedicated web page, the Iowa attorney general's office said.
"when consumers decide not to share location data on their devices, they should be able to trust that a company will no longer track their every move," Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said in a statement. the settlement shows that companies must be transparent in tracking customers and comply with state and federal privacy laws. "
"in line with the improvements we have made in recent years, we have resolved this survey, which is based on outdated product policies, which we changed several years ago," Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said.
CTOnews.com learned that Google said in a blog post on Monday that it would "update in the coming months to provide greater control and transparency over location data." These changes include making it easier to delete location data, and new users will have automatic deletion controls that allow them to order Google to delete certain information after it reaches a certain amount of time.
State prosecutors investigated a report in 2018 that said Google would do so even if users instructed Google not to record location data. The investigation found that Google has misled consumers about location tracking since at least 2014, violating state consumer protection laws. Arizona filed a similar lawsuit against Google and settled for $85 million in October 2022.
Texas, Indiana, Washington and the District of Columbia sued Google in January for alleged fraudulent location-tracking practices that violated users' privacy.
In the first half of this year, Google's advertising revenue was $111 billion, more than any other online advertising seller. The location information of consumers can help advertisers, make advertisements more targeted and catch consumers' attention.
