OLYMPIA, Wash. – Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson is taking on big tech.
Ferguson’s office explained in a statement that the lawsuit, filed today, Monday, January 24th, specifically targets Google’s “deceptive” location tracking practices.
According to the lawsuit, Ferguson accuses the tech giant of secretly tracking peoples’ locations and not being fully transparent about how much information they’re collecting from consumers.
In particular, Ferguson alleges that people who turn off their “location sharing” will still have their information tracked by Google.
The location sharing feature is often used by Google and other companies to personalize ads and make location-based recommendations for users.
Ferguson says that Google will often prompt people to repeatedly enable location sharing on their device, even after they’ve turned it off.
The lawsuit claims that Google violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act.