Three states and the District of Columbia allege that the tech giant misled consumers by continuing to track those who had changed their privacy settings to prevent data collection.
The District of Columbia and three states sued Google on Monday, claiming that the tech giant deceived consumers to gain access to their location data. In separate lawsuits, the attorneys general of D.C., Texas, Washington and Indiana claimed that Google misled users of Android phones and of tools like Google Maps and its search engine by continuing to track location information of users who had changed privacy setting to prevent the data collection. Karl A. Racine, the attorney general for the District of Columbia, led the complaints following a three-year investigation, which was initiated after a report by The Associated Press showed the company recorded users’ movements even when told not to. He said investigators found that since at least 2014, Google made misleading and conflicting claims to consumers about privacy protections offered via its account settings. The D.C. lawsuit alleged that even when a user had changed the settings in their account or device to stop location tracking, Google still collected and stored that information through Google services, Wi-Fi data and marketing partners.
