Google will pay an $85 million settlement to the state of Arizona in order to resolve claims that the company illegally tracked the location of Android device users.
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich sued Google in May 2020, claiming that “dark patterns” (design tactics that can manipulate user behavior) were built into its software on Android phones and apps. The suit argued that Google kept location tracking running in the background to collect advertising data, even after users had turned off location sharing, and made privacy settings to keep location information private needlessly difficult to find. This follows a 2018 report from The Associated Press that found Google tracks users through services like Google maps, weather updates, and browser searches, even with Location History switched off.
