US Lawsuits Accuse Google of Tracking Data Without Users’ Permission | News from the world

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A group of senior US justice officials accused Google in lawsuits Monday of tracking and profiting from user location data, despite leading consumers to think they can protect their privacy on the tech giant’s services.

Google creates detailed profiles and sells highly targeted advertising with data collected from its billions of users, with location being key information, lawsuits seeking to block the alleged practices have said.

“Google has falsely tricked consumers into believing that changing their account and device settings would allow customers to protect their privacy,” said Karl Racine, attorney general in the nation’s capital Washington.

These lawsuits are the latest legal threats against Google and other American Big Tech giants, which have long faced investigations and prosecutions, but the lack of new national laws regulating their activities.

The attorneys general – the best law enforcement and legal advisers in the states – of Indiana, Washington and Texas have allegedly brought the same charges against the tech giant.

Google said the officials’ claims were inaccurate and based on outdated claims about its settings.

“We’ve always built privacy features into our products and provided strong controls for location data,” Google said in a statement. “We will defend ourselves vigorously and set the record straight”.

Racine said that from 2014 to at least 2019, Google said that users could turn off the “Location history” and “the places you go to are no longer stored” setting.

“This is not true. Even when Location History is turned off, Google continues to collect and store user locations,” Racine’s office said in a statement.

Officials also say the Silicon Valley giant used “dark models” or design tricks to subtly influence consumer choices in ways that benefit the company.

Racine’s office cited the example of repeatedly asking users to provide location in certain apps and claiming that products would not function properly without it, when in fact the location was not needed for the app.

“Even a limited amount of location data, aggregated over time, can expose a person’s identity and routines,” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement.

It noted that the information can be used to infer “sensitive personal data” such as political or religious beliefs, income, health or life events such as births and divorces.

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