The amount is substantial. According to the New York Times, Google agreed on Monday, November 14, to pay 391.5 million dollars (379 million euros) to end ongoing investigations led by a coalition of 40 American states (Oregon, Florida, Nebraska… .) . The latter filed a complaint in response to a report published by the Associated Press in 2018. The document accuses Google of having collected, between 2014 and 2019, user geolocation data without their authorization. This is for advertising purposes.
This is the “largest agreement ever concluded regarding the protection of personal data in the United States,” greeted, for his part, the Attorney General of New Jersey. Under the terms of the agreement, Google must now more clearly indicate what geolocation data is collected, even when the functionality is disabled in one service but not in others (search engine or apps like Google Maps).
Google denounces practices that no longer fall short
Google defended itself in a blog entry published this Monday, November 14 alleging that the lawsuits against him are based on “outdated product policies.” However, the company explains that it intends to roll out new functionality in the future, including a single information center aimed at “highlighting key location parameters to help the public make informed decisions about their data.”
Google will also begin providing more “grainy” information about the data collected during the account creation process and will roll out a new button that will allow you to disable and delete a user’s location history and web and app activity automatically. simple.
The settlement comes a month after Google paid the state of Arizona $85 million for tricking users into thinking they had mistakenly disabled location tracking on Android phones and apps. The company is also the subject of a lawsuit from Washington, Texas, Indiana and Washington state, which have similar allegations about Google’s past geolocation practices.
Source: BFM TV
