Google Again Sued By Three US States For Attacking User Privacy

Google is again facing accusations of location tracking practices. (photo: doc. pixabay)

JAKARTA - Google is again facing accusations of location tracking practices that invade user privacy. It is claimed, the company often deceives users into its practice.

In a separate lawsuit, the attorney general for the districts of Columbia, Texas, Washington and Indiana, the US state, claims that Google misled users of Android phones and that tools such as Google Maps and its search engine continue to track location information of users who have changed settings. privacy to prevent data collection.

"Google mistakenly led users to believe that changing their account and device settings would allow customers to protect their privacy and control what personal data the company had access to," said Attorney General for the District of Columbia Karl Racine.

"This is contrary to Google's representation, it continues to systematically monitor customers and profit from customer data. Misrepresentation of Google is a clear violation of consumer privacy," he added.

Launching NBC News, Tuesday, January 25, Google collects and stores this information through Google services, Wi-Fi data, and marketing partners. The search giant also misleads and pressures users to enable more location tracking, for example by claiming products will not function properly if location services settings are disabled when in fact they are not required to use the app.

In response to this, Google said that the allegations made by the attorney general were false and had implemented many changes to its privacy policy to help users protect their location data.

"The attorney general is bringing the case based on inaccurate claims and outdated statements about our settings. We're always building privacy features into our products and providing robust controls for location data. We'll vigorously defend ourselves and set things straight," a Google spokesperson said. Jose Castaneda.

The US tech giant is also fighting an antitrust lawsuit led by Texas, in which the state accused the company of acquiring and abusing a monopoly on a system that allows publishers to auction off ad space to marketers. Google has asked a federal court to dismiss the lawsuit.

Washington state attorney general Bob Ferguson noted that in 2020, Google generated nearly $150 billion from advertising.

“Location data is key to Google's advertising business. As a result, it has a financial incentive to prevent users from withholding access to that data."

As quoted from the NYTimes, this lawsuit adds to the increasing attacks by regulators to limit the power and business practices of Silicon Valley giants such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple.

State and federal regulators have filed dozens of antitrust, consumer protection, privacy and trade lawsuits in a bid to curb business models or break up companies. A Senate committee last week put forward a potentially important antitrust bill that tries to undermine the dominance of the internet giant.