Google has agreed to pay $155 million to settle claims by California and private plaintiffs that the tech giant misled consumers regarding how it tracks their locations and used their data without consent. These settlements address allegations that Google deceived users into thinking they could control how the company collected and used their personal data.
Google faced accusations of tracking users’ locations and targeting them with advertisements, even when they had turned off their “Location History” setting. The California settlement mandates Google to pay $93 million and provide more transparency about its location tracking and data usage practices.
Under the settlement with private plaintiffs, Google will pay $62 million, with a portion allocated to court-approved nonprofit organizations focused on internet privacy. This approach was chosen because it would be impractical to distribute the funds to approximately 247.7 million U.S. adults with mobile devices.
Google has denied liability in these cases, which require court approval. In a related development last November, Google agreed to pay $391.5 million to resolve similar allegations by 40 U.S. states.
Despite these settlements, Google maintains that the issues were related to outdated product policies that were changed several years ago.
In the first half of 2023, Google generated $110.9 billion in advertising revenue, constituting 81 percent of its total revenue of $137.7 billion.