Google Will Pay $85 Million Fine For Illegally Collecting User Data

Everyone knows that Google’s main business is online advertising. The search engine is continuously working on improving the search results. But this also has another goal: to provide users with better ads. For this, the company should collect much data concerning users’ whereabouts. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be able to provide targeted advertising. However, this is against user privacy. Recently, the Arizona state filed a lawsuit against the tech giant. And now, we learn that Google has to pay $85 million to resolve the suit.

Besides Arizona, many other state attorneys, including Texas, Indiana, and Washington D.C., have filed similar suits. They all accuse Google of collecting user location data.

What’s worse, the Arizona attorneys said that Google kept collecting user data even after they disabled the feature that allows recording location data.

This Is The Biggest Fine Google Pays Per User

According to the state consumer protection law, Google can’t use the collected user data for a sale or advertisement. So Googe says it didn’t do that. But earlier this year, an Arizona state judge denied Google’s request to dismiss the case.

While this might sound common, this is the largest amount Google pays per individual user. Moreover, Google’s quarterly revenue exceeds $69 billion. So nothing serious happened.

“I am proud of this historic settlement that proves no entity, not even big tech companies, is above the law,” Brnovich said in a statement.

In this regard, José Castañeda, a Google spokesman, said that Arizona’s suit was based on old product policies. But the company changed it years ago. “We provide straightforward controls and auto delete options for location data and are always working to minimize the data we collect,” Castañeda said. “We are pleased to have this matter resolved and will continue to focus our attention on providing useful products for our users.”

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