The Hawaii Office of Consumer Protection announced the state will receive $4,705,227 as part of a settlement with Google over its location tracking practices.
Hawaii’s portion is part of a $391.5 million settlement that includes 39 other states, the largest multistate privacy settlement in the state’s history.
“This historic settlement holds Google accountable for misleading consumers into a false sense of security regarding its privacy settings,” Stephen Levins, executive director of the Office of Consumer Protection, said in a release from Gov. David Ige’s office. “Instead of respecting the explicit wishes of consumers regarding their privacy settings, it took advantage of the trust that they had placed in it for its own financial gain.”
The investigation began following a 2018 article by the Associated Press that reported Google “records your movements even when you explicitly tell it not to.” According to the release, “the article focused on two Google account settings: location history and web and app activity. Location history is off unless a user turns on the setting, but web and app activity, a separate account setting, is automatically “on” when users set up a Google account, including all Android phone users.”
The states argued Google violated state consumer protection laws by misleading consumers about its location-tracking practices since at least 2014.
The settlement, according to the release, requires Google to: show additional information to users whenever they turn a location-related account setting “on” or “off”; make key information about location tracking unavoidable for users (i.e., not hidden); and give users detailed information about the types of location data Google collects and how it’s used at an enhanced “Location Technologies” webpage.
The settlement also limits Google’s use and storage of certain types of location information and requires Google account controls to be more user-friendly.
In addition to Hawaii, the other 39 states that are part of the settlement include Oregon, Nebraska, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.