Google fails to get Arizona privacy lawsuit thrown out of court

|
, ,

Google is facing a privacy lawsuit in Arizona brought by the state’s attorney general. The lawsuit alleges that Google deceived users with ambiguous settings that involved smartphone location tracking. A judge has now ruled that the case will not be tossed out but should be heard by a jury.

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

According to Reuters, Google sought summary judgment to get the case thrown out in an early stage. Google argued that the state failed to show that its consumer fraud law could apply and noted that Google had clarified its disclosures about privacy settings since the state’s attorney brought the case nearly two years ago.

HOW TO: Change system date in OS X ...
HOW TO: Change system date in OS X from Terminal

The decision comes a day after attorneys general in Washington state, Indiana, Texas and the District of Columbia sued Google on similar grounds as the Arizona case. read more

Under Judge Timothy Thomason’s ruling in Arizona, the state can proceed with claims that Google may have engaged in deceptive practices in failing to disclose its location tracking capabilities to phone buyers and app users. But he rejected a third argument that Google deceives users by taking location data to help sell ads.

Google in a blog post on Tuesday applauded the dismissal of what it called the state’s central argument.

“We will continue to focus on providing simple, easy-to-understand privacy settings to our users, and will not be distracted from this work by meritless lawsuits that mischaracterize our efforts,” the blog said.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich called the ruling a “great win for Arizona consumers.”

The action revolves around the fact that users of smartphones running Google’s Android operating system who disable a Location History feature to limit tracking still had their location saved to their Google account through another setting, Web App and Activity.

Reuters

What do you think of this privacy lawsuit against Google? Will it head anywhere? Or just go to die in the lawsuit graveyard? Please share your thoughts on any of the social media pages listed below. You can also comment on our MeWe page by joining the MeWe social network.

Previous

Independence Day classic movie review: Does it still hold up?

Lights, camera, Crackle…See what’s new on Crackle in February 2022

Next

Latest Articles

Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap