Four US attorneys general sued Google on January 24. They accuse Mountain View of having collected geolocation data from their users despite their refusal. They also blame the company for using design tricks to influence their decisions. Google denies.
Google surreptitiously tracks its users
The complaint filed by prosecutors in Washington DC, Washington, Indiana and Texas alleges that, “ in fact, consumers who use Google products cannot prevent Google from collecting, storing and profiting from their location “.
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At the center of their criticism, the fact that when users activate on Android or their Google account on iPhone the option cutting geolocation, the company continues to collect and store information in other ways. According to the lawsuit “ Misleading, ambiguous and incomplete descriptions of these settings by Google ensure that consumers would not understand when their location is collected and stored by Google, or for what purposes. “.
Google uses other of its services, for example YouTube, WiFi connection, Bluetooth or its commercial partners to override user consent. Cutting geolocation through these means is possible, but laborious.
A case that dates back to 2018
This practice was brought to light by the American media Quartz from 2017 and concerns the years 2014 to 2019 at least. A year later, Associated Press enriched these revelations, prompting prosecutors to begin their investigation.
Under their states’ consumer protection laws, they’re asking the courts to stop Google immediately and to reimburse users harmed for advertising revenue generated by collecting this data. According to washington post, they also hope that Mountain View will be amended.
A company spokesperson countered by saying prosecutors’ complaint is based on “misrepresentations and outdated assertions about our metrics.” He asserted, on the contrary, We have always built privacy protection features into our products and provided strong controls for location data “.
The long war of attorneys general
In recent years, US state attorneys general have gone to war against the digital giant. Antitrust proceedings have been launched against the practices of Google Play, another against the dominant position of the Mountain View search engine.
Another complaint concerns the company’s anti-competitive use of advertising technologies. Google defended itself in the latter case on January 21. He considers the complaint outdated, that his products actually improve competition and that the agreement with Facebook did not harm competition.
This is Google’s first major counterattack on all of these procedures. The case must be tried in 2023. The new battle opened by the attorneys general also promises to be long-term.