{"id":55099,"date":"2020-08-27T19:39:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T16:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/google-location-tracking-tactics-troubled-its-own-engineers\/"},"modified":"2020-08-27T19:39:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T16:39:00","slug":"google-location-tracking-tactics-troubled-its-own-engineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/google-location-tracking-tactics-troubled-its-own-engineers\/","title":{"rendered":"#Google location-tracking tactics troubled its own engineers"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Google location-tracking tactics troubled its own engineers<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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August 27, 2020 |<\/span> 12:39pm <\/p>\n

\n Google\u2019s own engineers were troubled by the way the company secretly tracked the movements of people who didn\u2019t want to be followed until a 2018 Associated Press investigation uncovered the shadowy surveillance, according to unsealed documents in a consumer fraud case.<\/p>\n

The behind-the-scenes peek stems from a three-month-old lawsuit against Google filed by Arizona\u2019s attorney general<\/a>. The files, unsealed late last week, reveal that Google knew it had a massive problem on its hands after an AP article published in August 2018 explained how the company continued to track users\u2019 whereabouts even after they had disabled the feature Google called \u201clocation history.\u201d<\/p>\n

The released documents include internal Google emails and a fresh version of the state\u2019s civil complaint with fewer redactions than the original.<\/p>\n

The same day the AP story was published, the company held what one unidentified email correspondent called an \u201cOh S\u2014-\u201d meeting to discuss its location tracking tools, according to the unsealed records in Arizona\u2019s Maricopa County Superior Court. Google also began monitoring public reaction to the AP story, including how it was trending across Facebook<\/a>, Twitter and other influential online services, the documents show.<\/p>\n

Some of Google\u2019s own engineers scolded the company for misleading people about how its location tracking settings worked. \u201cI agree with the article,\u201d one engineer wrote in a particularly blunt assessment after the AP story was published. \u201cLocation off should mean location off, not except for this case or that case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another Google engineer wrote, \u201cIndeed we aren\u2019t very good at explaining this to users.\u201d Another concurred that what the company was doing was \u201cdefinitely confusing from a user point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n

The release of the emails is embarrassing for a company that tries to build trust with billions of users of free services such as maps and online search, which in turn provide the personal information Google can use to target ads. Those ads generated more than $130 billion in revenue last year alone.<\/p>\n

Google is still fighting to keep many of the exhibits and key passages in the lawsuit redacted on the grounds that the contents contain confidential information.<\/p>\n

After the AP article on location tracking came out two years ago, Google made changes to its privacy settings to make it easier for users to conceal their movements.<\/p>\n

But the revisions didn\u2019t deter Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich from opening an investigation that culminated in his suing Google three months ago. The complaint accuses Google of engaging in deceptive business practices that duped Arizona consumers, and could potentially result in billions of dollars of penalties if Brnovich prevails.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe recently unsealed documents reveal statements from Google\u2019s own engineers that are in conflict with what the company has been representing to the public,\u201d Brnovich said in a Wednesday statement.<\/p>\n

Google is seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the Arizona law only app<\/a>lies to goods and services that charge consumers. That would exclude free services that draw upon the tracking tools that are at the heart of the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The company also contends that Brnovich, a Republican, may have been prodded to pursue the investigation by Oracle, which has been involved in a long-running legal battle over the rights to some of the software code used in Google\u2019s Android software for smartphones and other mobile devices.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrivacy controls have long been built into our services and our teams work continuously to discuss and improve them,\u201d Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said Wednesday. \u201cIn the case of location information, we\u2019ve heard feedback, and have worked hard to improve our privacy controls.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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If you want to read more Technology<\/a> News<\/a> articles, you can visit our Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Google location-tracking tactics troubled its own engineers” August 27, 2020 | 12:39pm Google\u2019s own engineers were troubled by the way the company secretly tracked the movements of people who didn\u2019t want to be followed until a 2018 Associated Press investigation uncovered the shadowy surveillance, according to unsealed documents in a consumer fraud case. The behind-the-scenes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[59845],"class_list":["post-55099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-google-location-tracking-tactics-troubled-its-own-engineers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}