Friday, August 17, 2018

Google's location tracking risks a huge fine

Google, which was just fined $5B by the EU for how it abuses privacy is now risking a much larger fine - 2% or 4% of revenue - due to how it, well, abuses privacy:
Privacy campaigners say Google's obsessive collection of location markers violates Europe's privacy laws - potentially exposing the Californian giant to punitive fines. 
Several privacy watchers agree that as it stands, users are misled, and can't give informed consent. That exposes the company to financial penalty under GDPR rules: which could be 2 per cent or 4 per cent of turnover. 
"Burying its stalking settings, while distracting users with a deliberately crippled 'Location history' button, isn't just deceitful - it's unlawful," campaigner Phil Booth opined. "Without proper consent or legitimate purpose, Google is breaching the GDPR rights of every EU citizen it has been tracking.
We'll see if the EU wants to make sure that there are teeth in the GDPR privacy regulation.

2 comments:

Old NFO said...

Heh, one more reason NOT to have an Android...

Beans said...

So I'm confused. The EU sued Google for access to all the data from the Android phones on their citizens, and then gets butt-hurt and angry that Google collects data from the Android phones of their citizens?

My head hurts. I think I'll go read some Tax Law to clear my mind.

And Old NFO? I hear from peeps out there that Apple does the same. And charges more for it.

The Windows phones, if I remember, actually collected less info than Google. And I liked my Windows phone. Ah, well. Progress.