Google has settled an $85M lawsuit from the Arizona Attorney General, but Android users are still tracked by default unless additional steps are undertaken.
$85 million dollars is quite the chunk of change, but it won’t be distributed directly to the residents of Arizona on whose behalf the lawsuit was filed. Instead, the money will first be split between the state and its legal counsel, with the latter receiving $7.75 million. $5 million of the remaining $77.25 million will go to the attorney general, who will spend it on education and programs intended to train attorney general staff in matters of consumer protection. The rest of the money will be spent on education, broadband, and Internet privacy programs at the direction of the state legislature.
While these funds may help improve matters of Internet privacy and consumer protection in Arizona, Google isn’t bound by the settlement to make any changes to its data collection practices or policies. Mark Brnovich, the Arizona Attorney General, said in a
Google’s view on the matter, according to company spokesman José Castañeda, is rather that the lawsuit “is based on outdated product policies that we changed years ago.” José went on to say, “We provide straightforward controls and auto delete options for location data, and are always working to minimize the data we collect. We are pleased to have this matter resolved and will continue to focus our attention on providing useful products for our users.” Back in 2018, the Associated Press (AP) published a piece bringing attention to the fact that Google still collects some user location data even when Location History is disabled in Google Account settings. Two years later, the Arizona Attorney General sued Google for deceptive location tracking practices, citing this AP article. Now, after two more years have passed, the two parties have reached a settlement. Google has agreed to pay the state of Arizona $85 million dollars in order to resolve the lawsuit.$85 million dollars is quite the chunk of change, but it won’t be distributed directly to the residents of Arizona on whose behalf the lawsuit was filed. Instead, the money will first be split between the state and its legal counsel, with the latter receiving $7.
