State suing Google over privacy practices--Getty Images
State suing Google over privacy practices--Getty Images
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The suit has 38 states participating, but in WA, Google attempted to appeal it.

King County Judge rules lawsuit vs. Google can continue

Monday, May 23rd, officials from the WA State Attorney General's office said a King County judge has thrown out Google's attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed.

In January, AG Bob Ferguson, along with 38 other State's Attorney's, filed the suit accusing Google of deceptive privacy and tracking practices. According to the AG suit: 

"...Google uses a number of deceptive and unfair practices to obtain users’ “consent” to be tracked. As a result, it is nearly impossible for users to stop Google from collecting their location data. These practices include hard-to-find location settings, misleading descriptions of location settings, repeated nudging to enable location settings and incomplete disclosures of Google’s location data collection."

The litigation also claims Google continues to gather location data even when a consumer disables the "location history" feature;  tracking Android devices even with the location service turned off;  and trying to encourage users to turn on such features--claiming certain functions on their phone won't work unless location services are enabled.

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A trial has been set for this case in January 2023. This isn't the first time Google has been sued in WA state, in 2018 and 2021 they were sued for violating campaign finance disclosure laws related to elections.

 

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