Google will be paying Arizona millions of dollars as settlement over a lawsuit saying the tech giant tracked Android users without consent, reports say.
According to Bloomberg, Google will pay Arizona about $85 million to settle a 2020 lawsuit filed by Attorney General Mark Brnovich. At the time, the state attorney general said Google continued tracking the location of users in the background, even after users turned the feature off.
Brnovich said Google made it difficult for Android users to avoid being tracked when they use apps, such as those for weather, mapping, and others. The state attorney general said users were forced to dig deeper to find ways to stop the tech giant from tracking their whereabouts, and that if ever they do succeed, Google still finds way to track them illegally.
"When consumers try to opt out of Google's collection of location data, the company is continuing to find misleading ways to obtain information and use it for profit," Brnovich said.
Aside from that, Brnovich also said Google changed the way it tracks users without informing users of such changes, much less asking for their consent to the changes as well as permission to be tracked all the time.
Furthermore, Arizona also accused Google of being uncooperative, saying the tech giant employed delaying tactics and generally failed to comply to the states demands for records.
"At some point, people or companies that have a lot of money think they can do whatever the hell they want to do, and feel like they are above the law," Brnovich said.
Google, in response to Brnovich's allegations, confidently responded at the time through a spokesperson that the state and the "contingency fee lawyers" seems to have "mischaracterized our services."
"We have always built privacy features into our products and provided robust controls for location data. We look forward to setting the record straight," the spokesperson told Engadget at the time.
Fast forward years later, Google still hasn't cleared its name, but has decided to pay its way off the case. Engadget noted that because the company earns about $69 billion every quarter, the $82 million settlement will seem very small, just like "a drop in the bucket."
Nevertheless, Brnovich seems pleased despite the small amount the rich tech giant has to pay, because the settlement proves that no matter how powerful or rich Google may be, "no entity, not even big tech companies, is above the law."
Google is still facing similar lawsuits in other places such as Indiana, Texas, and Washington D.C.
