Topic: Lawsuit says Google tracks phone users regardless of privacy settings (Read 118 times)

Already knew they did this. I guess they can't monitor over 1 billion people at once so they target specific people.

All android phones have backdoor programs to track their users.

I have Kaspersky anti-virus link on my website and yesterday to check the links I clicked them. Today when I am on other websites I am getting google adsense/ads for Kaspersky.

People who click on Kaspersky from my website and they may buy later, they can click on google ads when they see them on other websites.

"Do not track" request is enabled in my chrome browser.

I don't believe that to be true

The reports of this state that turning off the tracking code does turn off the continuous location tracking of your phone

They still collect data, just using a different method... they use other apps to collect the data... Whenever you use your facebook app, maps, weather app, or anything you use asks for location information, google intercepts and stores that location and time

So instead of a continuous stream of location points, they only have a location data point when you access certain apps.

The issue is... that's still tracking you after you asked them to not do that

Well.. the tracking code obviously written as a backdoor in Android source code. As far as i know..

(Reuters) - Google has been accused in a lawsuit of illegally tracking the movements of millions of iPhone and Android phone users even when they use a privacy setting to prevent it.


“Google represented that a user ‘can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.’ This simply was not true,” the complaint filed in San Francisco federal court said.


The plaintiff, Napoleon Patacsil of San Diego, is seeking class-action status on behalf of U.S. users of Android phones and Apple iPhones who turned the tracking feature off.

He is seeking unspecified damages for Google’s alleged intentional violations of California privacy laws, and intrusion into people’s private affairs.

The alleged tracking by the unit of Mountain View, California-based Alphabet Inc was described in an Aug. 13 Associated Press article, which said it was confirmed by computer science researchers at Princeton University.

Google did not immediately respond on Monday to requests for comment. Michael Sobol, a partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein representing Patacsil, did not immediately respond to similar requests.

Patacsil claimed that Google illegally tracked him on his Android phone and later on his iPhone, where he had downloaded some Google apps.

He said Google’s “principal goal” was to “surreptitiously monitor” phone users and let third parties do the same.

The help section of Google’s website now says that turning Location History off “does not affect other location services” in phones, and that some location data may be saved through other services, such as Search and Maps.

The case is Patacsil v Google Inc, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 18-05062.