The world's most widely used search engine misled
users into thinking that by turning off location tracking –
disabling the feature in their account settings – users would
no longer be geolocated.
After four years of investigation, the New York Times reported
news of the conclusion of what has been called “the largest
Internet privacy settlement in the United States”. The
settlement in question, between 40 U.S. Attorneys General and
Google, resulted in the search engine being ordered to pay $391.5
million in compensation to users in the 40 countries involved.
The conduct alleged against Google consists of deceiving users:
users were led to believe that by disabling geolocation from their
devices they would no longer be tracked. Instead, it has been found
that through the wide range of services offered (search engine,
maps, apps) that connect to wi-fi and cell phone towers, Google has
collected and stored an immense amount of data related to the
locations and
