Google has agreed to pay over $391 million to settle a bipartisan, multistate action that accuses the search giant of deceiving users about how their location data are handled.
The settlement came about 10 months after state attorneys general from 40 states filed suits separately in each jurisdiction, alleging that Google has, since at least 2014, been falsely leading users to believe that changing their privacy setting could stop the company from tracking their location.
“Big Tech is watching us, but Silicon Valley needs to know that we are watching them too, and if they violate our consumer protection laws, we will take strong action to protect our citizens,” Ashley Moody, Florida’s attorney general who co-lead the case, said Monday in a press release….