Google Agrees to $391.5 Million Privacy Settlement With 40 States

Google has agreed to pay $391.5 million in a privacy settlement with 40 state attorneys general over its location tracking practices, according to Oregon's Department of Justice on Monday.

The agreement is the largest consumer privacy settlement by states in US history. States argued that the search giant misled people into thinking they had turned off proximity-based data collection when the company continued to allocate that information. Google agreed to improve its location tracking disclosures starting in 2023.

"For years Google has prioritized profit over their users' privacy," Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in a release. "They have been crafty and deceptive. Consumers thought they had turned off their location tracking features on Google, but the company continued to secretly record their movements and use that information for advertisers."

Google's policy communications manager José Castañeda said, "Consistent with improvements we've made in recent years, we have settled this investigation which was based on outdated product policies that we changed years ago."