A group of U.S. attorneys from three states and Washington D.C. on Monday filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming the Internet giant has been violating users’ privacy by tricking them into revealing location data.
“Google uses tricks to continuously seek to track a user’s location,” says D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine, who filed the suit with attorneys from Texas, Washington, and Indiana. “The time of trickery for profits is over. This suit … is an overdue enforcement action against a flagrant violator of privacy and the laws of our states.”
The lawsuit accuses Google of intentionally making it difficult for users to turn off their tracking settings so they’ll leave the feature engaged “inadvertently or out of frustration.” The company then gathers the information and uses it to push products, per the suit. However, Google spokesman Jose Castaneda says, “We have always built privacy features into our products and provided robust controls for location data. We look forward to setting the record straight.”
Google Illegally Used Dark Patterns to Trick Users Into Handing Over Location Data, State AGs Say https://t.co/4w1heiEte9 pic.twitter.com/EyP0nyhoMA
— Gizmodo (@Gizmodo) January 24, 2022
Do you know if your Google tracking feature is turned on?
