Location data – gateway for online advertising

Location data – gateway for online advertising

Washington, Jan. 28, 2022

Four U.S. attorneys general have sued Google, accusing the tech giant of deceiving users to gain access to their location data through misleading „dark patterns.“ In separate lawsuits, the attorneys general from the District of Columbia, Indiana, Texas and Washington allege that Google misleadingly described users‘ location and privacy settings so that they believed they were not sharing location data when in fact they were.

The location data helped the company serve online ads more effectively, the lawsuits say. Google is accused of telling cell phone users that they could get the most out of Google Maps by sharing their location data, even though that data is not necessary for the app to work.

The lawsuits allege that Google led users to believe they could turn off location tracking by turning off the location history settings. However, tracking remained on unless users turned it off in web and app activity settings.

Prosecutors believe the company tricked users into enabling location history sharing „inadvertently or out of frustration“ through repeated prompts.

A Google spokesperson called the allegations „inaccurate“ and „outdated,“ and said the company has privacy features built into its products and has „robust“ controls for sharing location data.

A similar privacy lawsuit against Google was filed in 2020 by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. That lawsuit accused Google of illegally tracking the location of Android phones.