Google makes it impossible for users to opt out
of having their sensitive and valuable location
data tracked, the suit alleges.
The attorneys general of Texas, Indiana and
Washington state iled similar lawsuits in their
state courts.
“Google’s business model relies on constant
surveillance of its users,” Racine’s oice said in a
news release. The D.C. suit asserts that Google
has “a powerful inancial incentive to obscure
the details” of its location-data collection and
to make it diicult for consumers to opt out.
It says location data is a key part of its digital
advertising business that generated $150
billion in revenue for Google’s parent company,
Alphabet Inc., in 2020.
The company, based in Mountain View,
California, is disputing the claims.
“The attorneys general are bringing a case based
on inaccurate claims and outdated assertions
about our settings,” Google spokesperson Jose
Castaneda said in a statement. “We have always
built privacy features into our products and
provided robust controls for location data.”
The company will defend itself and “set the
record straight,” Castaneda said.
Google says that in recent years it has made
several improvements to make location data
easy to manage and understand, and has
minimized the amount of data stored.
The lawsuits are the latest in a raft of legal
salvos against the tech giant, whose search
engine accounts for an estimated 90% of web
searches worldwide.