Google reaches $93M settlement with AG Bonta over location privacy practices
MOUNTAIN VIEW – Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a $93 million settlement with Google to settle claims the internet giant's location privacy practices violated state consumer protection laws.
The California Attorney General's office said Thursday that the settlement follows an investigation by the California Department of Justice determining the company collected, stored and used location data without informed consent.
"Our investigation revealed that Google was telling its users one thing – that it would no longer track their location once they opted out – but doing the opposite and continuing to track its users' movements for its own commercial gain. That's unacceptable, and we're holding Google accountable with today's settlement," Bonta said in a statement.
In a complaint filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court, Bonta alleged Google deceived users in multiple ways.
The attorney general claimed the company falsely told users that their location data would not be stored if the "Location History" setting is turned off. When the setting was turned off, Google would continue to collect and store location data through other sources.
Bonta also alleged that the company misled users about their ability to opt out of ads targeted to their location.
"[M]any users did not know of or understand Google's Location History and Web & App Activity settings, yet had unwittingly enabled them due to Google's deceptive disclosures, thereby allowing Google to track their precise location. In addition, Google misrepresented that when users disabled Ads Personalization it would stop using the user's location to target advertisements to those users, when in fact it continued to do so," according to the complaint.
As part of the settlement, Google would pay $93 million and follow multiple terms, including showing users additional information when enabling location-related settings, provide more transparency about location tracking and provide detailed information about location data Google collects.
In a statement to KPIX, a Google spokesperson said, "Consistent with improvements we've made in recent years, we have settled this matter, which was based on outdated product policies that we changed years ago."
The settlement remains subject to court approval.
