California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a $93 million settlement with Google, Inc. over allegations of the company’s violation of several provisions of the California Business and Professions Code (BPC) related to its location tracking practices. The practices in question pertained to the company’s statements and policies related to their use and collection of users’ location data.
As part of the proposed final judgment, Google is now obligated to avoid misrepresentation of its location tracking practices to users and must notify users when location tracking is enabled. Beyond this, the tech giant has to maintain a webpage disclosing its location tracking practices and policies and must submit compliance reports to the California Office of the Attorney General.
Google was also charged with the task of providing a $93 million payment to the Attorney General according to section 17206 of the BPC, a provision that regulates civil penalties for violations. The lawsuit against Google included allegations of violation of the BPC’s false advertising and unfair competition provisions.
The complaint highlighted Google’s deceptive practices in tricking users into enabling the ‘location history’ feature, which continuously tracks and records user location data for targeted advertising purposes. Google was also accused of using deceptive prompts to this end and collecting location data despite users having turned off the location history feature.
In his comments about the settlement, Attorney General Bonta emphasized the dissatisfaction with Google’s practices saying, “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.”
California isn’t alone in holding corporations like Google accountable. In November 2022, attorneys general from 40 states settled for $391.5 million with Google over similar location tracking practices, marking the largest privacy settlement in US history.