Google’s own engineers were worried about the way the company secretly tracked the movements of people who did not want to be tracked until a 2018 Associated Press investigation discovered the shady surveillance, according to unsealed documents in a consumer fraud case.
The peek behind the scenes stems from a three-month lawsuit filed against Google by Arizona’s attorney general. The files, released late last week, show that Google knew it had a huge problem on its hands after an AP article published in August 2018 explained how the company continued to track users’ whereabouts, even after they the feature disabled by Google was called “location history”. ”
The released documents include Google’s internal emails and a new version of the state’s civil complaint with fewer editions than the original.
The same day the AP story was published, the company held what one unnamed email correspondent called an “Oh S- -” meeting to discuss its location tracking tool, according to the unsealed records in Arizona’s Maricopa County Superior Court . Google also began monitoring public reaction to the AP story, including how it’s trending across Facebook, Twitter and other influential online services, the documents show.
Some of Google’s own engineers accused the company of misleading people about how their location settings worked. “I agree with the article,” one engineer wrote in a particularly dumb review after the AP story was published. “Location out must mean location, not except for this case as that case.”
Another Google engineer wrote: “In fact, we are not very good at explaining this to users.” Another agreed that what the company was doing “was definitely confusing from the users’ point of view.”
The release of the emails is embarrassing for a company trying to build trust with billions of users of free services such as maps and online search, which in turn provide the personal information that Google may use to serve ads straightening. Those ads generated more than $ 130 billion in revenue last year alone.
Google is still struggling to change many of the exposures and key passages in the lawsuit, based on content that contains confidential information.
After the AP article on location tracking came two years ago, Google made changes to its privacy settings to make it easier for users to hide their movements.
But the reviews did not deter Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich from opening an investigation that culminates in his accusation against Google three months ago. The complaint accuses Google of engaging in deceptive business practices that deceive Arizona consumers, and could potentially result in billions of dollars in fines if Brnovich gains the upper hand.
“The recently unsealed documents provide statements from Google’s own engineers that are in conflict with what the company has represented to the public,” Brnovich said in a statement Wednesday.
Google is trying to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that Arizona law only applies to goods and services that consumers charge. That would exclude free services that make use of the tracking tools that are at the heart of the lawsuit.
The company also notes that Brnovich, a Republican, may have been asked to pursue the investigation by Oracle, which is involved in a long-running legal battle over the rights to some of the software code used in Google’s Android software for smartphones and other mobile devices.
“Privacy controls have long been built into our services and our teams are constantly working to discuss and improve them,” Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said Wednesday. “In the case of location information, we’ve heard feedback, and we’ve worked hard to improve our privacy controls.”
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