Google Agrees To $392 Million Privacy Settlement With 40 States (nytimes.com) 31
Google agreed to a record $391.5 million privacy settlement with a 40-state coalition of attorneys general on Monday for charges that it misled users into thinking they had turned off location tracking in their account settings even as the company continued collecting that information. From a report: Under the settlement, Google will also make its location tracking disclosures clearer starting in 2023. The attorneys general said that the agreement was the biggest internet privacy settlement by U.S. states. It capped a four-year investigation into the internet search giant's practices from 2014-2020, which the attorneys general said violated the states' consumer protection laws. Google said it had already corrected some of the practices mentioned in the settlement. "Consistent with improvements we've made in recent years, we have settled this investigation which was based on outdated product policies that we changed years ago," said Jose Castaneda, a spokesman for the company. States have taken an increasingly central role in reining in the power and business models of Silicon Valley corporations, amid a vacuum of action from federal lawmakers.
Pocket change (Score:4, Interesting)
What is $392 mil for Google? Besides, we all know that "making its location tracking disclosures clearer" simply means that they are going to add yet another clause to Terms and Conditions which no one ever reads. What should really happen is that every app should be acompanied by a privacy statement written by an independent 3rd party, not Google themselves. Only then the real scope of gathered data would become visible.
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"Should" is super easy.
How do you make it happen? I don't think .4 billion doesn't register with Google. Gross profit wise - yes, it's small. But it registers on somebody's budget. Google isn't one person who doesn't care where the money is coming from. But these kinds of reactions make me think it's just a self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to regulation. "Ah, the government does nothing! They suck! I'mma vote for the next moron who promises all kinds of things that are impossible in practice!"
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What is the population of the 40 states that used the location services? How much do you think Google made over the 6 years? I for one don't think they even made a dent on the profit let alone register on Googles budget.
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What is worse, where does this money go? To the law firms the states subcontracted some of these documents, and thats who really benefits. The tax payers do not get a slice of that pie. The state coffers just end up dolling out the extra money to their chosen vendors.
Your whole statement, and I'm not saying you're wrong (hell, you're probably correct), is nothing more than claims supported by nothing. I don't understand people's need to declare what is "probably happening" and then present nothing but hollow words to back it up.
I'd be willing to bet that you could submit a FOIA request to the relevant authorities and get a detailed breakdown of exactly where the money is going.
Of course, then you'd know and you wouldn't get to speculate and complain about something
Re:Pocket change (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with big number in news articles is that us little folk down here in the working world have zero concept of it. To us $391.5 sounds like a HUGE amounts because, to us, it is a huge amount. But to Google it really isn't.
But these kinds of reactions make me think it's just a self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to regulation. "Ah, the government does nothing! They suck! I'mma vote for the next moron who promises all kinds of things that are impossible in practice!"
When looking at big numbers in the news a good trick is to translate them back down to a more personal scale. So, considering that Google had a net revenue of $257.63 Billion in 2021 and taking that against the $391.5 Million fine we get a percentage of 0.1520%. My gross pay was $55k last year, so 0.1520% of that number comes out to...
$84.34
And what's worse, this fine is split 40 different ways! So, in reality I'd be paying each person about $2.11 each.
Yes, $2.11... each. We're the ninety-nine cent Wendy's menu level of money here. So yeah, the government does suck. Fines are supposed to be meaningful to encourage good behaviour, they're supposed to be large enough to ensure one doesn't engage in bad behaviour. Here, 40 individual states basically said "Yeah, we're gonna fine you the equivalent of an expensive date at Red Lobster you naughty naughty company you!"
But here's the thing, instinctually you already know that if you'd done something similar you'd be brought up on stalking charges, have several thousands in fines, and probably a couple years in jail - meanwhile Google over here gets to buy everyone a can of soda and a cheap chocolate bar along with a nudge nudge wink wink promise they'll make it clearer next time that they're gonna keep stalking you even when you tell them to stop.
Screw that! A real fine would have been for 20% of their income along with a strong promise that if they don't change their ways and actually stop stalking people who ask them not stalk them, then the fine will be bigger next time and jail time is coming for the CEO.
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I don't disagree. My point is that people's reactions to how toothless regulatory bodies are seems to be - ironically - to vote for politicians who are less inclined or able to strengthen those teeth.
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I don't disagree. My point is that people's reactions to how toothless regulatory bodies are seems to be - ironically - to vote for politicians who are less inclined or able to strengthen those teeth.
Yes, that is another issue entirely. Whole segments of the population have been suckered into voting against their own best interests due to tribalism over the "culture wars". So we end up with people voting for the person who says they will stop the cultural thing the voter doesn't like, while at the same time making sure their corporate donors and owners are never held accountable for it.
The problem is there's a lot of that on both sides, though one side is demonstrably worse than the other. So much so
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Re:Pocket change (Score:4, Interesting)
If everyone stopped to fully read every TOS presented to them, the US economy would grind to a halt overnight, resulting in massive bankruptcies and unemployment. The companies that write them depend on people not reading them for the company's very existence. The majority would go out of business within weeks if people stopped, read, and understood the agreements.
As if this weren't bad faith enough, almost every sign-up form and purchase times out well before an average human could read the entire TOS, plus all the other TOS's linked from that TOS. That's how much they genuinely expect you to read it.
Of course, everyone knows that they are a ruse. Grown adults have proven more than willing to say and do the most silly and ridiculous things for a few dollars, and pretending these "agreements" are legitimate is one of the silliest.
"But judge, how else are we supposed to bind millions of people to these nefarious terms? It would be too difficult!"
Maybe binding millions of people to shitty terms isn't supposed to be easy? Maybe it's one of those things that should be difficult and daunting?
Not in the U.S. of A. We want to expedite that shit.
These phony "Agreements" + the "Licensing" scam (where anything containing any code is licensed, not purchased, even if the underlying hardware which comprises 99.9999% of the cost cannot operate without it) provided the justification needed to further seize rights from the citizen and cede it to the corporation ... the right to the protection of consumer laws, the right to control of one's private property, it's all being taken from them one line at a time, as the ruling class sits and marvels at just how hot the frogs will tolerate the water before trying to jump out.
Hell, it's just about boiling, and still they sit, content as can be.
Can you believe it?
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Of course, everyone knows that they are a ruse.
Okay, clue is in to how you'd do it different. Tell us how you'd write the Terms and Conditions for an internet service created by you. Tell us how you'd word it so your ass was covered, legally, with all the required legal disclaimers and verbiage mandated by law, as well as the information you NEED to convey to your users/subscribers/patrons. There is information you NEED to convey to someone giving you money or using your service. There is information you SHOULD provide to your clients. There is also
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What should really happen is that every app should be acompanied by a privacy statement written by an independent 3rd party
So.... your argument is that nobody reads the T&C's, but they are going to read the Privacy Statement?
Care to enlighten the rest of us as to how you came to that conclusion?
Not even a slap on a wrist (Score:5, Insightful)
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Approximately $703 Million per day. So this fine amounts to the money that Google makes in 12 hours. It is literally pocket change for them.
Revenue is NOT profit. Profit is what Google "makes".
Who Really Gets The Money? (Score:3)
I bet it isn't the actual users. This sounds more like a government payoff to just keep doing what they have been doing.
My niece works for Google (Alphabet) (Score:2)
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It's fair to say at this point, that if they have the technical capability of doing it, they are doing it.
They also scan all your photos and categorize what's in them with some kind of AI. Similar scanning happens to anything you say that gets picked up on the hot mic that is your phone. That stuff freaks people out more than the location tracking, so they keep quieter about it.
In 10 years there will be a whistleblower or a document leak to fill in the details, and we might see another lawsuit like this wit
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and has for more than 10 years, in 'location services'. A couple years after she started at a holiday dinner I asked her if Google is still tracking me when I turn off 'location' in my Android phone. She answered: "We aren't supposed to talk about that."
So you knew and said nothing?
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and has for more than 10 years, in 'location services'. A couple years after she started at a holiday dinner I asked her if Google is still tracking me when I turn off 'location' in my Android phone. She answered: "We aren't supposed to talk about that."
So you knew and said nothing?
I've said it to a lot of people over the years. To me, the company's actions are evil. But I haven't found any real live human to show me an ounce of disgruntlement about it. Either people believe me and are resigned to it (using various rationalizations), or they respond in a way to frame me as a sort-of flat-earth kook. It's very frustrating.
I'm not interested in Google being fined (Score:5, Insightful)
Fines are factored in the cost of doing business for gigantic monopolistic companies whose business model rests on violating people's privacy through corporate mass surveillance.
What I'm interested in is this: did the court specify what oversight process will be put in place to prevent Google from offending again?
Because if they feel nobody's watching and they can get away with it, they WILL reoffend: t's not like they made an honest mistake and learned their lesson. Google's mistake was getting caught.
Sadly, I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this.
Assuming every other American has an Android phone (Score:2)
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We're not to blame, because it was in the past? (Score:1)
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Apple is very much on this bandwagon, too. They showed their proclivity for this kind of thing a few months ago when they announced they'd start scanning your photos for child porn. A miscalculation on their part, they had to go back on the announcement. But it shows you they are interested, and they needed a way to get people used to the idea that it's OK for your phone to do stuff like that.
Sure, lawyers benefit, but... (Score:1)
...what about all that localtion telemetry Google collected that they probably shouldn't have? Is this a lawsuit about privacy or the fact that consumers didn't get a damn notification pop-up? Google gets to pay a slap on the wrist fine, and then what? Keep the data to sell?
I'd ask why even bother, but the lawyers answer it every time.
Money is about the past, what about the future? (Score:2)
Does the settlement require Google to disable location to everything when the location setting is in the disable position?