Google settles with states over location data tracking

Google has agreed to pay nearly $400 million in a settlement with 40 state attorneys general in a consumer protection investigation involving the tracking of users’ locations without their knowledge.

“Google quietly tracked its users to turn a profit and today they are being held accountable,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) in a press release Monday announcing the settlement.

New York State expects to get more than $20 million as a result of the agreement which was described as “the largest multi-state attorney general privacy settlement in U.S. history.”

In addition to the payment, Google will agree to limit the location data the company can store and use. It will be required to offer more transparency to consumers.

Google, which did not admit to wrongdoing, said in a statement Monday that it has worked to make it easier for its users to manage their location services and minimize the data the company collects.

“Consistent with improvements we’ve made in recent years, we have settled this investigation which was based on outdated product policies that we changed years ago,” said José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson in an email.

The multi-state coalition of attorneys general came together following a 2018 Associated Press investigation that found Google tracked users who thought they had opted out of location tracking. The issue affected Android phone users and others who set up a Google account on their device.

“This $391.5 million settlement is a historic win for consumers in an era of increasing reliance on technology,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong (D) said in a statement. “Location data is among the most sensitive and valuable personal information Google collects, and there are so many reasons why a consumer may opt-out of tracking.”

The coalition included both Democratic and Republican attorneys general.

“We expect web browsers, like Google, to protect the privacy of its users rather than to exploit their information,” said Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge (R).

Last month, Google reached a settlement agreement with Arizona for $85 million in a similar case. Earlier this year, Indiana, Texas, Washington State and Washington, D.C. also sued Google over location tracking.

The details of Monday’s announced settlement were laid out in an assurance of voluntary compliance, which is different than a more traditional lawsuit settlement.

In its 2018 story, the AP estimated that as many as two billion Android and iPhone users who accessed Google maps or Google’s search engine were potentially affected by the privacy issues. Location tracking is an important tool for targeting ads at users. 

In the third quarter of this year, Google’s ad revenue was more than $54 billion.