Google Settlement U.S. $400 Million in Consumer Tracking Allegations

[engine]

Google has settled out of court the U.S consumer tracking allegations with a $391.5 million fine brought about by 40 states.

"When consumers make the decision to not share location data on their devices, they should be able to trust that a company will no longer track their every move," Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said in a statement. "This settlement makes it clear that companies must be transparent in how they track customers and abide by state and federal privacy laws."

[reuters.com...]

Of course, Google spins the value of location tracking.
[blog.google...]

[tangor]

Privacy data is the only real "currency" for big tech, so it is no wonder that it will be continued to be collected, and the methods of collecting will change...

Pretty sure the above will not stop the collection of data, only the manner is which it is collected.

Government is always playing catch up, not leading the way.

[jimji]

I wonder if there is an acceptance of calculated risk when making a decision related to walking on the very edge of federal/state laws when top management makes decisions about how to go about tracking people.

Firstly, they figure the average customer hasn't a clue how all this tracking stuff works, so no need to be too worried about a backlash from that group.

Secondly, the government regulators are only looking at the part of the iceberg that is showing above the waterline and are reading briefs from specialists about what is below the waterline, but don't really have time to study the tech points too deeply.

Third, they agree to a fine that sounds so cool for PR purposes, but that doesn't really piss off the stockholders too much. I reckon the average gal/fella reads something like 'almost 400 million dollars' and is properly impressed and on to the next issue in their lives and thinks no more about this business of a Google machine or software watching their every move.

So that top management decides it's worth the risk to tell your staff to stay right on that borderline between legal and illegal and, by the way, if you might step over the line into clearly illegal activities, we might not be so worried up here in the offices of top management. That is, if you don't get nailed too easily to cause us a bad PR problem. Be sure you have a plausible camouflage for anything that smells of trouble, so we can continue to use the vocabulary "allegations" in our press releases and legal papers.

Does this Webmaster World Community have any members that really understand all the ins-and-outs of this location tracking system? That Google blog about whether a given restaurant is crowded, for example; how do they know? Camera footage? Maybe the owner of the restaurant sends data directly to Google under some sort of agreement between the two companies?

... Google Search surfacing local restaurants and letting you know how busy they are, ...

I am not so sure I am understanding that vocabulary "surfacing", but that might be some error in language usage.

Still, do we have anyone in this community that really understands how all this big location machine works? Is it possible it is all one big secret project under the guise of protecting industry secrets? What is the scope of all of this? Is it even controllable, other than the Sun kicking out a G5 event and knocking all equipment offline?

[tangor]

It all happens. It is real. Isaac Asimov's Hari Sheldon told us all about it in the 1950s. AE van Vogt, Robert A Heinlein, Arthur C Clarke...

Humans are humans, and humans can get a bit slippery when chasing lucre. This fine is a "pay off" to the gubermint (sic) foils for a bit of breathing space to continue the plunder.

ENOUGH OF THIS NOT SO HUMOROUS TIN FOIL HAT!

Tracking is required in the online ad market for it to work. HOW INVASIVE that tracking can be is constantly challenged by PRIVACY LIMITATIONS many governments support and recognize. When things get out of hand some whack-a-mole is required to level the field once again---sending the opposing team back to the coding side to figure out another way to do the same thing.

With the same privacy invasion.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

[jimji]

My key point was whether anyone here has technical expertise in how this tracking is done.

As this community is titled Webmaster World it seems there might be a few folks that can provide a bit of technical information. I asked a specific question about the line from Google about restaurants. I really would like to know how that is done.

As for that reference to a tin foil hat, you might find some of Earth's humans in some nations would take that as an insult. Do you take your democratic freedoms for granted? Do you think this is all just some nonsense? Seems to me there were a lot of very intelligent state employees in a number of states that felt it was worth the time and effort and worry to do something about it. That tin hat reference is an insult to them, as well.

I offer my apology, but that sort of attitude worries me. You keep ignoring the chipping away of your privacy and you might find that someday it's completely gone. Or, if you are my age, it'll be your children or your grandchildren that will be paying the price of folks not paying attention to what's going on now. This isn't some tin hat science fiction nonsense.

[not2easy]

Mobile devices have GPS locationing capabilities. You can allow or disallow their use on most devices. They are used to navigate using maps. They are also able to tell you what is nearby and whether any of your friends, family or associates are nearby. People who enable 'Locations' can use maps and search or ask Google or Siri (or Alexa, at home or with the app) to help them find what they want or what place they are looking for. People use it commonly without giving a thought to it. It depends on your settings whether you wish to allow Locations for these purposes. It is possible to disable Locations except for particular apps or needs. Many people are lazy and just allow it for whatever.

If you use any Google services, if you use an Android phone for example, you have a Google account. There is nothing to prevent them from compiling a dossier on those individuals who share everything all the time. It is used to sell them what they are looking for. You can visit your Google account and opt out of most of these 'services'. but you need to know about them and wish to disable them in order to do it. It takes a lot of steps to decide which mobile apps you want to permit to use locations. More than many people care to bother with.

Google spent plenty of time and money building their Chrome browser and ensuring it is faster (by preloading on your bandwidth) so it would become popular. If people were aware and took the time to look into the why and how of things they might find ways to lower their exposure to the ubiquitous data mining that is going on throughout their day.

Because you can opt out if you take the time to do so, they feel perfectly entitled to help themselves to your waking activities in order to supply AI with how to give you personalized attention and answers.

I hope that might help you see how Google knows whether a given restaurant is busy or not. Unless everyone walked around with their devices in Airplane Mode, they have incoming data constantly.

[jimji]

Yes, my family got me an android device last year when the relapse happened and the docs said I'd be in the hospital for a lengthy period of time and I did learn about all sorts of oddities about that android device, but I don't suppose I realized they would take coordinates and correlate that to a particular commercial establishment. But I can understand how easy that would be. Well, easy to do with the aid of computerization. Funny, too, I am now remembering that I did some research and found out that in some parts of the planet there are some laws that make it illegal to mask that GPS system. Farraday box or something. Just off the top of my head. I'm probably not getting that box thingy right. Okay, many android devices at a particular commercial establishment. That makes sense. Then, of course, there are those darn cameras all over the place. It's amazing that we are building a great spying network for commercial purposes and so very few seem worried about it. We really are a trusting bunch of folks, aren't we? Maybe a trusting bunch of fools. Actually, I use my Andy phone for communications with family only. I've had many difficult exchanges with some folks outside the family because there are some who know I have the phone but I won't use it for anything but SMS to family and talking to family folks.

And that it is so easy for strangers to take pictures is a very not good thing, in my view. I saw one of those Google picture cars the other day. Scares the heck out of me, to be frank.

Anyway, the phone and the restaurant --- got it. Thank you. But I am also interested in going even deeper into this whole "we-know-where-you-are" stuff.

[not2easy]

For emergency services, even landlines have GPS coordinates. When you call emergency services, they need to have your GPS location to find and assist (or possibly rescue) you.

[jimji]

When did that technology take root? Obviously, I wasn't aware of that. In fact, I have some recordings of two emergency calls I had to make last year and will check, but I thought that officer talking to me asked me where I was located. And I know it used to be in the United States you had to tell the person answering the emergency call where you were located. But you are stating that a landline call supplies GPS information. That's interesting. As you can see with your admin panel I am not living in North America, so it could be that here that technology doesn't yet prevail. That technology is common in most advanced nations? My goodness, you've just given me a new homework assignment. And thank you for the heads up on that. Actually, my wife and daughter have both gotten pretty good at telephone tech stuff and might be able to help me. Lately, I've backed off from a lot of tech stuff as I only have a short time longer and need to get some archives properly arranged and sent off to a university that I promised could have my stuff when I passed on. Actually, kind of amazing the docs found a chemical to keep me alive for this long. Well, that's off-topic, isn't it? Sorry.

[jimji]

I better add a thought here, or look a complete fool. I knew that a landline call could be traced, but I thought there was (still) a need for a certain period of time for the trace to be completed. Maybe what you are referring to is the same tracing technology, but now it is much faster due to new technology. But, still, I hadn't really thought much about this until your post; so, still, I appreciate that info and will still do a bit of homework.

[not2easy]

I have no idea of how it is done but highly doubt that they are doing an old fashioned trace. I first learned that they had a location for landline about 20 years ago when I was calling at a neighbor's request - they had no phone at that time. I sort of thought that the emergency center must have received a database of GPS data from the phone company that installed the phone. Something matching GPS to phone number. They could easily offer that information.

[jimji]

Very good point that I hadn't considered --- the GPS data is in a file at a company office for individual accounts. Lesser brain ability at my end. I never thought of that. Good lesson for me. Thank you.

But I wonder if there is some sort of new technology that has speeded up that tracing a landline call asset that law enforcement uses/used sometimes? I could probably ask some retired folks that would know at one of our monthly meetings. But our January meetings are usually not so well attended, so maybe February.