Everyone knows that Googleâs main business is online advertising. The search engine is continuously working on improving the search results. But this also has another goal: to provide users with better ads. For this, the company should collect much data concerning usersâ whereabouts. Otherwise, it wouldnât be able to provide targeted advertising. However, this is against user privacy. Recently, the Arizona state filed a lawsuit against the tech giant. And now, we learn that Google has to pay $85 million to resolve the suit.
Besides Arizona, many other state attorneys, including Texas, Indiana, and Washington D.C., have filed similar suits. They all accuse Google of collecting user location data.
Further reading: Google Will Notify You If Your Sensitive Information Is Posted Online
Whatâs worse, the Arizona attorneys said that Google kept collecting user data even after they disabled the feature that allows recording location data.
Gizchina News of the week
This Is The Biggest Fine Google Pays Per User
According to the state consumer protection law, Google canât use the collected user data for a sale or advertisement. So Googe says it didn’t do that. But earlier this year, an Arizona state judge denied Googleâs request to dismiss the case.
While this might sound common, this is the largest amount Google pays per individual user. Moreover, Google’s quarterly revenue exceeds $69 billion. So nothing serious happened.
âI am proud of this historic settlement that proves no entity, not even big tech companies, is above the law,â Brnovich said in a statement.
In this regard, JosĂ© Castañeda, a Google spokesman, said that Arizonaâs suit was based on old product policies. But the company changed it years ago. âWe provide straightforward controls and auto delete options for location data and are always working to minimize the data we collect,â Castañeda said. âWe are pleased to have this matter resolved and will continue to focus our attention on providing useful products for our users.â
