Google Agrees to $392 Million Privacy Settlement With 40 States

Google agreed to a record $391.5 million privacy settlement with a 40-state coalition of attorneys general for charges that it misled users into thinking they had turned off location tracking in their account settings even as the company continued collecting that information. Under the settlement, Google will also make its location tracking disclosures clearer starting in 2023. The attorneys general said that the agreement was the biggest internet privacy settlement by US states. It capped a four-year investigation into the internet search giant’s practices from 2014-2020, which the attorneys general said violated the state's consumer protection laws. Google said it had already corrected some of the practices mentioned in the settlement. States have taken an increasingly central role in reining in the power and business models of Silicon Valley corporations, amid a vacuum of action from federal lawmakers. The attorneys general of Oregon and Nebraska led the settlement negotiations, assisted by Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. The final settlement was also joined by Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.