In a settlement, Google agreed to pay out $391.5 million to 40 states to rectify its policies concerning user privacy settings. Multiple states opened investigations in 2018 after an AP story broke that Google continued tracking location data even after the feature had been disabled by the user. Since at least 2014, Google has violated state consumer protection laws by misleading users about its location tracking procedures, according to the attorney generals. The settlement also requires Google to make all operations concerning confidentiality transparent to users.
