Google has struck a deal with 40 US states, agreeing to pay them US$391.5 million to end investigations into how the search engine collects user data.
It’s the largest-ever multi-state agreement on personal information protection in the United States, according to a press release from the New Jersey Attorney General.
According to the coalition of states that led the investigation, the Internet giant violated consumers’ right to privacy by collecting geolocation data without their authorization, for advertising targeting purposes.
The states investigation was prompted by a 2018 Associated Press article which reported that many Google services on cellular devices store geolocation data even if the user has enabled a setting that should prevent Google from do it. This privacy issue affected two billion mobile users in all, whether they used the company’s Android system or just some of its iPhone apps.
Investigation of “obsolete” regulations
“In accordance with the improvements we have made in recent years, we have ended this investigation which was based on outdated regulations, which we changed years ago,” said a Google spokesperson, contacted by the company. AFP.
“Google cannot pretend to give users control tools over their personal information, and then ignore these features to collect and sell data to advertisers, contrary to the express request of Internet users,” said Matthew Platkin, the attorney general of the New Jersey, quoted in the press release.
“When platforms violate consumers’ right to privacy, they put them at risk,” he insists.
According to the terms of the agreement, Google must indicate more clearly what geolocation data is collected, including when the functionality is deactivated on one service but not on others (search engine, applications like Google Maps, etc.).
Unlike the European Union, the United States does not have a federal law on the protection of personal data. Some states, such as California or Colorado, have adopted similar texts.
Google, like its neighbors in Silicon Valley, has been repeatedly criticized for its economic model, which consists of selling finely targeted advertising space on a very large scale, and therefore depends on the data that the group collects on Internet users, their browsing online to their use of free applications.
With the Associated Press