Google to cough up $93 million to California in deceptive 'location privacy' settlement
Alphabet Inc.-owned Google
Google will be coughing up $93 million to settle a lawsuit, filed by California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta over the company’s deceptive and misleading tactics for managing location data of users.
Bonta announced the settlement on Thursday (September 14), saying the search engine giant hadagreed to a number ofnew restrictions pertaining to its location services and deceptive communications.
The case was filed after it emerged that Google was not delivering the 'privacy' experience it had promised its users.
The Golden State in its complaint said Google was able to "profile" and bombard users with targeted advertising, even when they had turned off their "Location History" setting. Meaning, that the company deceived the public about their ability, or rather inability to block ads they did not want.
"Google was telling its users one thing that it would no longer track their location once they opted out but doing theoppositeand continuing totrackits users' movementsfor its own commercial gain. That's unacceptable," Bonta was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Advertisements are the major source of revenue for Google. In the first half of 2023, the company has managed to generate $110.9 billion in ad revenue alone, which is 81 per cent of its total $137.7 billion earnings.
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Repeated offender
Notably, Thursday wasn't the first instance when Google has agreed to pay such a fine. In November last year, the tech behemoth agreed topay $391.5 million to resolve similar allegations by 40 US states.
While California chose to sue Google on its own, states such as Arizona and Washington settled.
Antitrust trial against Google
Google agreeing to pay the settlement comes days after one of the biggest antitrust trials in US history in the last two decades, got underway inWashington.
During the opening remarks, the US Department of Justice (DoJ)accused Google of paying a whopping $10 billion a year to Apple and other companies to maintain its monopoly in the search engine market.
Justice Department lawyer Kenneth Dintzer toldJudge Amit P. Mehta, who is presiding over the case that Google paid the said $10 billion amount every year to Apple and others tosecure its search engine's default status on phones and web browsers, thereby burying upstarts before they have a chance to grow.
Unlike the California settlement,Google is not expected to face a monetary penalty in the trial as the DoJ and state allies are seeking an injunction barring Google from continuing the alleged "exclusionary" anti-competitive practices.
(With inputs from agencies)
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