Google to pay $391 million in user tracking investigation settlement

Alphabet’s Google will pay $391.5 million to settle allegations from 40 US states that the company illegally tracked users’ locations, the Michigan attorney general’s office said on Monday. thursday (14th).

The investigation and settlement, led by Oregon and Nebraska, is a sign of mounting legal headaches for the tech giant from state attorneys general who have aggressively attacked user tracking practices in recent months.

In addition to the payment, Google is expected to be more transparent with consumers about when location tracking is taking place and provide users with detailed information about geolocation data on a special web page, the Iowa attorney general’s office said.

“When consumers make the decision not to share location data on their devices, they should be able to trust that a company will no longer track their every move,” Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said in a statement. “This agreement makes it clear that companies must be transparent in how they track customers and comply with state and federal privacy laws.”

“Consistent with the improvements we’ve made over the past few years, we resolved this investigation based on outdated product policies that we amended years ago,” said Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda.

Google had $111 billion in advertising revenue in the first half of this year, more than any other online ad seller. The geolocation of a consumer is critical in helping an advertiser with more relevant ads to grab the consumer’s attention.