(ORDO NEWS) — Google has agreed to pay $391.5 million in damages to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by 40 US state attorneys general.
The authors of the lawsuit proved that the IT giant misled users that after disabling the location tracking option in Google account settings, the collection of information stops, although in fact the company continued to collect geolocation data.
Attorneys general said the current agreement is the largest in the United States in the field of Internet privacy.
The investigation into this case lasted about four years and covered the period of the company’s activities from 2014 to 2020.
In addition to monetary compensation, Google has pledged to provide more information about when the company tracks the location of users.
According to Google, the company has already made a number of changes to the algorithms used to collect user data.
The company noted that since the beginning of the investigation, the outdated privacy policy for user data has been revised and a number of changes have been made to it to comply with current US law.
The source notes that the role of the state in limiting power and regulating the business models of IT giants is steadily growing.
Despite this, the US Congress and industry regulators have not been able to agree on the adoption of a federal law in the field of user data protection.
While legislators argue over the details of the legislation, the tech giants are supporting lobbyists who are working to soften the final version of the law or prevent it from being passed.
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