Google has closed for the year with a $20 million agreement with Indiana to settle an antitrust lawsuit filed by the state. The tech giant was alleged to have engaged in deceptive location tracking practices, according to the state’s Attorney General Todd Rokita.
Google and other members of Big Tech have been in constant battle with both regulators and states over the use of private data.
Rokita said the separate lawsuit was filed against Google when negotiations between the company and a coalition of state attorneys general stalled. Those states had reached a $391.5 million settlement with the company in November.
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The settlement is the last among many that the web search giant has recorded this year. The states began to probe Google after Associated Press reported in 2018 that the company continued to track people’s location data even after they opted out of such tracking by disabling a feature the company called location history.
Filing a separate lawsuit, Rokita said in his announcement on Thursday, has given Indiana about twice as much money as it would have under the deal with the 40 states in coalition.
“This settlement is another manifestation of our steadfast commitment to protect Hoosiers from Big Tech’s intrusive schemes,” Rokita said.
According to Indiana’s lawsuit, Google uses location data to build detailed user profiles and target ads. The suit also alleged that the company has deceived and misled users about its practices since at least 2014.
Rokita said he sued Google because even a limited amount of location data can expose a person’s identity and routines.
“Such data can be used to infer personal details such as political or religious affiliation, income, health status or participation in support groups as well as major life events such as marriage and the birth of children,” he said.
However, under the settlement agreement with Indiana, Google did not admit to any wrongdoing.
In January, Google received a €150 million fine from France’s data privacy watchdog, Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), after it was found guilty of manipulating cookies to its advantage.