On Thursday, Google reached a $93 million settlement with the state of California over its location-privacy practices.
The agreement follows a $391.5 million settlement struck in November 2022 with 40 states to conclude an inquiry into how the business tracked customers’ locations.
The states’ probe was prompted by a 2018 Associated Press report that indicated Google continued to follow people’s location data even after they opted out by removing a function called “location history.”
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“Our investigation revealed that Google told its users one thing—that it would no longer track their location once they opted out—but was actually doing the opposite, continuing to track its users’ movements for commercial gain.” That is intolerable, and with today’s settlement, we are holding Google accountable,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement.
As part of the settlement, Google agreed to a number of restrictions, including increased transparency about location tracking, notifying users that their location information may be used for ad personalization, and providing additional information to users when enabling location-related account settings.
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“In line with recent improvements, we have resolved this matter, which was based on outdated product policies that we changed years ago,” Google stated in a statement.
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