Last week, Google admitted that it tracks history even after they turn off location services. A few days later, a user named Napoleon Patacsil from San Diego filed a lawsuit against the tech giant over the matter.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Francisco, where its lawyers alleged that "Google is violating California's privacy law and the state's constitutional right to privacy.".
They seek to have the lawsuit be representative, including both the “Android Class” and the “iPhone Class” for millions of people in the United States who were tracked by Google despite having turned off their Location History.
However, it will take months before the judge can declare the lawsuit valid.
Meanwhile, lawyers for the Electronic Privacy Information Center have written a 3-page letter to the FTC, which states that Google's practices clearly violate the 2011 consent order.
According to the order, Google agreed not to misrepresent facts related to “(1) the purposes for which it collects and uses private information and (2) the extent to which consumers can exercise control over the collection, use, or disclosure of private information.”
Until the whole story about user location tracking came to light, the company's policy simply stated that Location History could be turned off at any time and that it would not be stored while it was turned off.
However, this turned out to be wrong, and what's worse is that the company simply chose to update its policies instead of stopping this practice.
Last Friday, Google updated the policy on its website, clarifying that “some location data may be stored as part of your activity in other services, like Search and Maps.”
