Court docs detail Google's user location data collection, efforts to make popular privacy settings harder to find, pressure on partners like LG to do the same
Google’s location-data and privacy-control design is placed under sharper legal and public scrutiny by documents alleging that a widely used off setting was deliberately difficult to locate.
LG is drawn into the dispute as an alleged recipient of pressure to make comparable privacy controls less prominent, extending the issue beyond Google’s own interface.
Second-order effects
The Australian ruling and the newly detailed documents make the clarity and placement of Android privacy controls a more consequential compliance issue for Google and its device partners.
Android partners face a tighter trade-off between following Google’s preferred settings design and limiting exposure to claims that users were misled about location collection.
Third-order effects
If courts continue to treat difficult-to-find controls as misleading, privacy compliance will increasingly turn on interface design and defaults—not only on whether a formal setting exists.
The episode points toward a data-rights regime in which platform control over partner software design becomes part of the accountability chain.
The trend: Location-data governance is shifting from notice-and-policy questions toward scrutiny of whether product interfaces make privacy choices genuinely accessible.
Most damning in newly unsealed evidence (1) Google's employees admitting there's almost no way NOT to provide your location to Google (2) Google designs its ecosystem for location data collection. “This doesn't sound like something we would want on the front page of the NYT.” /4 …
#Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private, according to new unredacted court documents. Even @Google execs & employees in charge of location data were confused about how privacy settings worked & couldn't keep info private https://www.businessinsi…
You mean to tell me internal Google documents confirm the company deliberately makes privacy features hard to find and pressures partners into the same, suggesting its entire business is built on destroying our privacy? Say it ain't so! https://www.businessinsider.com/ ...
“This may be how @Apple is eating our lunch,” the @Google employee added, saying Apple was “much more likely” to let users take advantage of location-based apps and services on their phones without sharing the data with Apple. https://www.businessinsider.com/ ...
“So there is no way to give a third party app your location and not Google?” one employee said, according to the documents, adding: “This doesn't sound like something we would want on the front page of the [New York Times].” https://www.businessinsider.com/ ...
This is why you should delete Googe Maps Immediately and install this brilliant alternative https://wego.here.com/. The Dutch service claim they work w privacy by design and I'm sure this will be checked https://www.businessinsider.com/ ...
this is intriguing, in as so much that in these documents you can clearly see: - clearly ignoring customer wants/needs around privacy/trust - large complex infrastructure making it hard for even privacy engineers to appropriately reason about what's going on https://twitter.com/.…
“When Google tested [Android] versions ... that made privacy settings easier to find, users took advantage of them, which Google viewed as a ‘problem,’ according to the documents. To solve that problem, Google then sought to bury those settings deeper...” https://www.businessinsi…
Funny algorithm placement; tweet exposing how it's pretty much impossible for google not to track you followed by apple app tracking transparency ad https://twitter.com/...
Google continued collecting location data even when users turned off various location-sharing settings, made popular privacy settings harder to find, and even pressured LG and other phone makers into hiding settings precisely because users liked them. https://www.businessinsider.…
When Google tested versions of Android that made privacy settings easier to find, users took advantage of them, which Google viewed as a “problem.” Google then sought to bury those settings deeper within the settings menu. https://www.businessinsider.com/ ...