Google fined Rs 7000 cr for tracking users’ location without consent

Tech giant Google has been fined a whopping Rs 7000 crore for tracking users’ location without their consent.

In a lawsuit filed against Google by California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta, it was established that Google continued to track users’ location, even after the ‘Location History’ option was turned off in a phone’s Settings menu.

As per the lawsuit, it was clear that Google was collecting and storing users’ location data without their knowledge.

Bonta also alleged that the company had deceived consumers by giving them a false impression of having greater control over their location data.

But Google has not accepted as to whatever has been alleged. However, it has agreed for a settlement and will be paying $93 million, which is roughly around Rs 7000 crore.

Not only this, Google has also reportedly underaken various additional obligations which include improving transparency regarding its location tracking practices, giving users prior notifications before using location data to build targeted ad profiles, and seeking approval from Google’s internal privacy working group before implementing any substantial privacy-related alterations.

WHY DO GOOGLE TRACKS USERS?
Google always tracks its users through location access in terms of improving the accuracy of its maps and location-based services, develop new products and features, or even show more relevant ads among others. Google tracks its users for a variety of reasons.

It is not only Google, earlier this year, Meta, led by Mark Zuckerberg, was also accused of using users’ data without consent. Meta was ordered to pay a fine of 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) and cease the transfer of data collected from Facebook users in Europe to the United States.