Google has agreed to pay a total of $29.5 million to settle two lawsuits related to the company’s tracking of customers’ locations.
Google used the location data of Indiana consumers to create rich user profiles and targeted ads, but misled users about those practices as early as 2014, said Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R), whose state jointly filed a lawsuit against the company in Washington, DC.
Google is paying Indiana $20 million to settle the state’s lawsuit over the company’s “deceptive location tracking practices,” Rokita said in a statement released Thursday.
“This settlement is yet another demonstration of our unwavering commitment to protecting Hoosiers from Big Tech’s intrusive schemes,” Rokita added. “We will continue to hold these companies accountable for their mismanagement of consumers.”
DC Attorney General Karl Racine (D) he posted on Twitter on Friday, his office reached a settlement with Google in the matter for $9.5 million. He alleged that Google tricked customers into gaining access to their location data. Google did it”almost impossible“to allow users to prevent their location from being tracked,” it says.
Racine said that under the settlement, Google will have to make clear to its customers how their location data is collected, stored and used.
Several states launched lawsuits against Google following a disturbing 2018 Associated Press article that revealed the extent of Google’s location tracking of customers.
The company agreed in November to pay a record $391 million to settle a 40-state coalition investigation into its tracking practices. Officials complained that Google was tracking even customers who chose not to be tracked.
It was the largest multi-state confidentiality agreement in US history.
Google did not immediately respond to the latest offer. But the company said in November that its controversial location-tracking practices had already been abandoned years before the previous agreement.
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