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Google to pay millions again to settle location tracking lawsuit
- Google has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought on by Washington state with a payment of $39.9 million.
- The lawsuit alleged that Google misled users about its location tracking practices.
- The state claims that Google profited from the location data of its users even when they had disabled tracking on their devices.
In what’s Google’s second multi-million dollar legal settlement this week, the tech giant will cough up $39.9 million to resolve a lawsuit over misleading location tracking practices. Google will pay the sum to Washington state over claims that it deceived users into believing they had control over their location data.
According to the state’s allegations, Google was able to collect and profit from the location data of its users even when they disabled location tracking on their phones and other devices. The state calls this an invasion of user privacy.
Reuters reports that a consent decree was filed in the King County Superior Court on Wednesday. As per its terms, Google is required to be more transparent about how it tracks users and provide a detailed webpage explaining “Location Technologies.”
Google, on its part, denied the allegations while agreeing to settle.
The state of Arizona reached a similar settlement with Google last year. The state had sued Google for its tracking practices, and the lawsuit was settled with an $85 million payout by the Mountain View company.
Just last Friday, the Texas Attorney General announced that Google has agreed to deposit a sum of $8 million for deceptive Pixel 4 ads.