Google has agreed to pay $93 million in a lawsuit over user location tracking.
The settlement was reached by Google with the state of California, which alleged that the Internet company collected data without the consent of users.
The California Department of Justice, after a years-long investigation, found that Google had been tricking users into collecting location data and using it for advertising purposes without permission.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said that along with the payment, Google acknowledged that steps would be taken to prevent it from happening in the future.
He said that these measures will be applied outside California as well.
On the other hand, a Google spokesperson said, “We’ve made a lot of improvements in recent years, and we’ve resolved this issue that was a result of old product policies that we changed years ago.”
According to the company, transparency tools were introduced in 2022, adding auto-delete controls and incognito mode to Google Maps.
The California attorney general alleged in his lawsuit that Google was not telling the truth about how it collects and stores location data and that data is collected even after users turn off location history settings. goes
He said the settlement would make Google’s location tracking process more transparent and inform users that their location details could be used for advertising.
The settlement is yet to be approved by the court.
It should be noted that earlier in November 2022, Google agreed to pay $390 million in such cases.
Media reports at the time indicated that the settlement would be paid to 40 US states, while Google would also be required to provide more detailed information on tracking.