Google’s privacy settings do not just confuse their users – they confuse their employees as well, according to internal documents that were not sealed in a lawsuit over Google’s data collection.
“The current UI feels like it’s designed to make things possible, yet difficult enough for people not to figure it out, ‘said one Google employee, according to the highly redacted documents that were newly unveiled today. The lawsuit was originally filed by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich in May; the new information in the unsealed documents was first reported by The mirror of Arizona.
“Even top-level Google employees do not understand the conditions under which Google collects location data,” Brnovich and his team wrote in the complaint.
The Arizona investigation was initiated by an Associated Press article from 2018 that showed that Google services will store location data from your Android device as an iPhone – even if you have a “pause” setting called “Location History”. However, even with this setting disabled, some Google apps automatically save location, along with a timestamp.
“I agree with the article,” a Google contributor wrote in the documents published today. “Location out must mean location; not except this matter as that matter. ”
Google says it is collaborating with Arizona’s attorney general, and has provided documents and questions answered by investigators. “Privacy controls have long been built into our services and our teams are constantly working to discuss and improve them,” said Jose Castaneda, a Google spokesman. “In the case of location information, we have heard feedback, and we have worked hard to improve our privacy controls. In fact, even these Christmas pact published extracts make it clear that the team’s goal was ‘Reduce confusion about location history settings’. ”
The disgrace over the way Google hid additional location settings in “Web and app activity” – deep in Google Account settings – eventually led the company to improve how it changed its privacy. Small changes over the past few years culminated in Google’s current policy of automatically deleting location and search history for new users. Current users still need to visit their Activity Checks page to change their settings.
But while Google has made changes, there is obviously much more it can do. The documents from the Arizona lawsuit make clear the confusion users are experiencing.
For example, Google serves personal ads to its users, and part of what it uses to personalize these ads is location data. It is possible to disable personalization of ads by disabling a setting – but the complaint claims that Google will not stop delivering your ads based on your location, it simply means that Google will assume that you are within a general area of three kilometers are instead with your exact GPS location on a map.
What’s more, this setting does not seem to change things for Google’s other advertising service, DoubleClick, which is used to display ads on other websites. Remove location information from dy ads require a different user interface, and Google will still use general location information to target users.
The settings for DoubleClick do not affect Google’s personalization of ads, says the complaint. “Thus, a user who thought they had opted out of receiving ads based on their location is wrong in two respects: Google still serves their location-based ads (based on their gross location) through the same offer such setting daily basis, “the complaint reads. “At the same time, due to these deceptive and unfair practices and practices, Google makes it impractical or impossible for users to deliberately sign off on Google’s collection of location information, if users do.”
Update August 26, 6:55 p.m. ET: Adds comments from Google Spokesman.
