Google to pay DC $9.5M over location-tracking claims

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Google location-tracking settlement overview: 

• Who: Google agreed to pay $9.5 million to resolve claims brought against it by the District of Columbia. 
• Why: The DC attorney general claims Google misled its users by not informing them that their location data could be tracked by its services even after the feature had been disabled. 
• Where: The complaint was filed in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia. 

Google agreed to pay $9.5 million to resolve claims brought by the District of Columbia that the tech company covertly tracked the locations of users who believed they had successfully disabled the feature. 

In addition to the fine, Google agreed to implement pop-up notifications that will let users who have location services enabled know the type of data it collects, along with instructions on how they can disabled it, according to the Google settlement. 

Google will also be required to dedicate a website to displaying, among other things, what kind of data the company collects, how enabling location services affects the information collected and how a user can limit what the company collects. 

The company filed a motion to dismiss last year, arguing at the time that the courts in the U.S capital lacked jurisdiction over its California-based company and that it failed to point to any specific statements that would have been misleading to its users, Law360 reports. 

The Google settlement agreement is reportedly the third reached by Google in response to the claims, which the tech company continues to deny. 

Google agreed to pay $391 million in November to end similar claims 

Google agreed to pay $391 million in November to end similar claims brought against it by a total of 40 states, in addition to a reported $20 million settlement made last month to resolve claims brought by the attorney general of Indiana. 

The District of Columbia and Indiana attorney generals filed their complaints simultaneously last January, at the same time as separate lawsuits brought by the state attorneys general in Texas and Washington state, Law360 reports. 

All of the complaints against Google reportedly argued the company had misled its users by not informing them that their location data could still be tracked by other Google services even after they disabled the “location history” option on their account. 

A federal judge in California let Google off the hook last month in a separate complaint, ruling against a pair of Android smartphone users claiming the tech company violated their privacy. 

Have you had your location data collected without your knowledge or consent? Let us know in the comments! 

The district is represented by Adam Teitelbaum, Jennifer M. Rimm and Elizabeth S. Feldstein of the District of Columbia Attorney General’s Office.

The Google location-tracking lawsuit is District of Columbia v. Google LLC, Case No. 2022 CA 000330 B, in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia. 

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