State attorneys general from Washington, D.C., and three states will accuse Google in court of deceiving consumers to get access to their location data unfairly.
The lawsuits, which are expected to be filed in state courts in Texas, Washington, and Indiana — one has already been filed in the superior court of Washington, D.C. — accuse the search giant of tricking users into giving up their location data and misleading users on how they can protect their privacy on the platform.
The lawsuits aim to stop Google and its location capturing services, such as Maps, Search, and others, from behaving in this fashion and fine the company for doing so.
“Google’s misleading, ambiguous, and incomplete descriptions of these settings all but guarantee that consumers will not understand when their location is collected and retained by Google or for what purposes,” the D.C. lawsuit states. “And, in reality, regardless of the settings they select, consumers who use Google products have no option but to allow the Company to collect, store, and use their location.”
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The D.C. lawsuit says that Google consistently pressures or nudges users to give more and more of their location data “inadvertently or out of frustration” while also using “dark patterns,” or in-built design tools, to encourage users to give up more data for Google’s business purposes.
The lawsuit also says that the tech giant, based in Silicon Valley in California, does not properly or easily allow users to opt out of location sharing.
The state attorneys general say they are trying to protect consumers by holding Google accountable.
“Google uses tricks to continuously seek to track a user’s location,” D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine said in an interview with the Washington Post. “This suit, by four attorneys general, on a bipartisan basis, is an overdue enforcement action against a flagrant violator of privacy and the laws of our states.”
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The lawsuits against Google are likely to take years to get resolved and are occurring as the company is already fighting multiple state lawsuits that go after other unfair business practices, including allegations of anti-competitive behavior.
