New legal troubles in the USA for Google on the subject of data collection and information from users.
The Mountain View giant ended up at the center of a class action brought by the prosecutors of some states, who denounced how Google Chrome continues to collect information on users and their location even during the so-called “ incognito browsing “.
The accusation made against Google, formalized in July 2020, is that it continued to collect data relating to the geolocation of users from 2014 until at least 2019, even when the latter had expressly refused. The attorneys general of the District of Columbia and Texas, Washington and Indiana therefore decided to sue the Mountain View company for privacy violation .
The prosecutors of the four states also accuse Google of having deceived consumers by providing incorrect or incomplete information on how their positions are tracked, implying that they can control the information it collects during the general use of Android, Google Search and Google Maps.
For the District of Columbia attorney, in particular, Google's business would be entirely focused on “continuous surveillance” of users and the collection of data that is then used to create and promote personalized ads. Disabling the various tracking options – including location – would therefore not, according to prosecutors, prevent Google from tracking and collecting data. Hence the request to a judge for an injunction blocking what are defined as “deceptive and illegal practices”, and for compensation for profits deriving from unauthorized tracing: 5 billion dollars .
At the end of January, a federal judge from the United States agreed with the plaintiffs, ruling against the request for dismissal made by the lawyers of Alphabet, the company to which Google belongs, thus motivating his decision: ” Google has not informed users that Chrome continues to collect data even while the user is in private browsing mode. ” In short, the trial will have to be celebrated.
Google for its part responded to the complaint and the judge's decision with a post published on his blog and entitled “ How Google gives you control of your location data “. In which, among other things, he gives his version of the decision of the Arizona court judge.
In the post, the company clarifies that “lawsuits such as these incorrectly define and inaccurately describe the settings and controls we provide to users over location data. An Arizona court has issued a legal ruling. significant against the Arizona Attorney General, who is somehow vindicating the decision as a big win, when in fact the judge dismissed his central argument. Unfortunately, just before the decision, four other state attorneys general rushed to bring similar lawsuits by making equally inaccurate and obsolete claims “.
“All smartphones use location data: they are an integral part of their operation – explains Google – The data is collected and used by network operators, device manufacturers, apps, websites and operating systems. For our part, the location makes Google products work better : it helps you move better in the event of a traffic jam, find your phone when it is lost and that allows you to find a pizzeria in your neighborhood instead of suggesting one in a different state “.
The company then recalled the tools available to users to check tracking:
- Delete the data in the History of locations, which creates a timeline of where you've been and saves it to your Google account;
- Delete data collected via the Web & App Activity, function that saves the activities that are carried out on Google sites and apps, or suspend the automatic saving;
- Set the car automatic elimination of both previous functions, by selecting a time period ranging from 3 months to 36 months;
- Incognito navigation mode of Google Maps, which allows you to search for places on Google Maps without them being saved
- Not sharing data on positioning with third parties such as advertisers and app: “From Android 10 onwards, you can choose to share your device's location with ment-only third-party apps re are in use or not at all “, underlines Big G.
“When designing our products we focus on three important principles: keeping information secure, treating it responsibly and giving control – concludes Google – We aim to find a balance between 'offering granular customization for users who want to choose between options, while keeping our controls simple and easy to understand. We will continue to focus on providing simple and easy-to-understand privacy settings to our users and will not be distracted from this work from baseless lawsuits that misrepresent our efforts. “
