Washington: Texas and Columbia District sued Google Alphabet Inc.
on Monday for what they call the practice of tracking cheat location that attacked user privacy.
Two general plans for other state lawyers to file lawsuits and part of the bipartisan effort to request Google responsible for privacy, Washington, Karl Racine DC office said in a statement.
“Google leads consumers mistakenly to believe that changing accounts and settings their device will allow customers to protect their privacy and control what personal data can be accessed by the company,” Racine said.
“The truth is contrary to Google representation that continues to benefit customers and the benefits of customer data.
Google’s courageous presentation is a clear violation of consumer privacy.” Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said “Lawyers General brought cases based on inaccurate claims and statements that were outdated about our settings”.
“We always build privacy features into our products and provide strong controls for location data.
We will vigorously defend yourself and set a direct record.” Attorney General Texas General Ken Paxton accused Google to mislead consumers by continuing to track their location even when users try to prevent it.
Google has a “location history” setting and tells the user if they turn it off “the place you are headed is no longer saved”, said Texas.
Google “keep track of user locations through settings and other methods that fail to be adequately disclosed,” Texas said.
In May 2020, Arizona filed a similar lawsuit against Google for a collection of user location data.
The lawsuit was delayed.