Minnesota Awarded $8.25 Million in Multistate Google Settlement

ST. PAUL (WJON News) -- Google has reached a settlement with Minnesota and 39 other states worth nearly $400 million.

Attorney General Keith Ellison announced Monday that Minnesota will receive $8.25 million in the largest multistate privacy settlement in U.S. history.

According to court records, starting in at least 2014, Google broke consumer protection laws by misleading users about the collection and use of their location data.

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Documents show the company was still tracking and recording people’s movements even when they asked it not to by creating a Web & App Activity setting separately from the Location History setting. That data was then used to make detailed user profiles and create targeted ads.

In addition to the payout, the settlement requires Google to be more transparent by making controls more user-friendly and providing more information when people turn settings on and off. The company will also be limited in the data it can collect and store from users.

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Source: Minnesota Awarded $8.25 Million in Multistate Google Settlement