Google has settled in the United States for misleadingly obtaining location data from millions of users for an amount of $ 391 million. Forty US states participated in the lawsuit against the tech company. According to state attorneys general, Google has violated consumer law by misleading users about location settings since at least 2014. This concerns the Location History and Web & App Activity account settings. Location History is disabled by default, but Web & App Activity, a separate account setting, is enabled by default when setting up a Google account.
When Web & App Activity is enabled and Location History is disabled, user movements will still be logged. With this, Google misled users and violated consumer law, according to the attorneys general. For example, users were kept in the dark about the scope of the Location History setting and the fact that Web & App Activity also collects location data. In addition to the amount of $ 391 million, Google must also be transparent to users as part of the settlement. The tech company will show additional information when users enable or disable location-related settings.
In addition, important location tracking information should not be hidden and Google should provide comprehensive information about the types of location data it collects and how it uses it.
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