United States of America: Washington Attorney General files lawsuit against Google for allegedly tracking location data without users’ consent

The Attorney General of Washington has filed a lawsuit against Google for its tracking location practices. In the lawsuit, it is alleged that Google collected, stored and used the users' location data without their knowledge or consent, or even against their intent, thus violating the Washington State Consumer Protection Act. During the investigation, the Attorney General collaborated with the attorneys general of the District of Texas, Columbia and Indiana. The allegations are that Google consumers are deceived regarding their ability to protect their privacy through a variety of practices (i.e. hard-to-find location settings, misleading descriptions of location settings, nudging to enable location settings, incomplete disclosures of collected data). In particular, the practices are pursued through the “Web & App Activity” setting, Android devices' settings and the repeated nudging in many Google products, such as Google Maps, Google Now and Google Assistant. The proposed relief includes ordering Google to pay penalities to users, cease the unlawful conduct, relinquish the profits made from the deceptive practices, and give up the data acquired from such conduct.