Arizona sues Google over claims it illegally tracked Android users

According to a report from The Washington Post, the tech giant Google has recently faced a legal quagmire in the US. Arizona’s state Attorney General Mark Bronvich has allegedly filed a lawsuit against Google over claims that it illegally collects location tracking information from Android users without their proper consent. 

The suit also argues that Google kept running location tracking in the background for mapping, weather, chrome browser and others such as SMS backup & restore apps even if the user had disabled all app-specific location features. The complaint also argues that Google has made it complicated to disable tracking and a user has to delve further into the Android system settings and turn off more extensive system level tracking.

“The Attorney General and the contingency fee lawyers filing this lawsuit appear to have mischaracterized our services. We have always built privacy features into our products and provided robust controls for location data. We look forward to setting the record straight,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement given to The Verge.

“At some point, people or companies that have a lot of money think they can do whatever the hell they want to do, and feel like they are above the law,” Brnovich was quoted as saying by The Washington Post in an interview reported on Wednesday.

“I wanted Google to get the message that Arizona has a state consumer fraud act. They may be the most innovative company in the world, but that doesn't mean they're above the law.”

Bronvich also said in an interview: “When consumers try to opt out of Google’s collection of location data, the company is continuing to find misleading ways to obtain information and use it for profit,”.

Bottom Line

Arizona state is now putting up the matter in a way that the court forces Google to pay back profits that it may have earned through running ads monetization to the Arizona residents. The post also states that the potential fines on Google might be up to $10,000 per violation.

Presently, US government officials and regulators are taking action accordingly and have started participating in an expansive and facilitated exertion over the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and state legislators to reign in Big Tech and uphold antitrust, privacy, and other different laws. These are rules Silicon Valley has presented to a great extent in the last few decades as lawmakers are not very successful to stay aware at the pace of technological change and the size of Big Tech's capacity to exploit loopholes and skirt guidelines for money gains and market consolidation.