Google pays Arizona $85 million over illegally monitoring Android customers

Google pays Arizona $85 million to settle a 2020 lawsuit, which claimed that the search large was illegally monitoring Android customers, Bloomberg reports. On the time, Arizona Legal professional Normal Mark Brnovich argued that Google continued to trace customers for focused promoting, even after they turned off location knowledge settings. If this sounds acquainted, it is as a result of Google can be being sued by attorneys normal in Texas, Washington, D.C., and Indiana over related knowledge monitoring complaints. Brnovich’s workplace additionally notes that the $85 million settlement is the biggest quantity Google has paid per consumer in a privateness lawsuit like this. 

However provided that Google is at present seeing quarterly income over $69 billion, the punishment could appear to be a drop within the bucket. It is nothing in comparison with the $1.7 billion Google was fined by the EU over abusive promoting practices. In a press release, Google spokesman José Castañeda mentioned the swimsuit was associated to older product insurance policies which have been modified. “We offer easy controls and auto delete choices for location knowledge, and are at all times working to reduce the information we accumulate,” he mentioned. “We’re happy to have this matter resolved and can proceed to focus our consideration on offering helpful merchandise for our customers.”

Brnovich, in the meantime, says he is “happy with this historic settlement that proves no entity, not even massive tech firms, is above the regulation.”