Google faces a €403 million fine—equivalent to roughly $463 million—from Ireland's Data Protection Commission regarding its management of location information. The enforcement action stems from grievances lodged by multiple European consumer protection organizations challenging the company's data practices.
The regulator identified violations spanning several dimensions: unlawful and unfair processing of location data collected through Web & App Activity and Location History settings; insufficient transparency regarding these features plus a third option called Location Accuracy; failure to meet accountability standards; and improper retention periods for collected information. The problematic conduct occurred between May 2018 and February 2020, with Google required to correct its approach within a half-year timeframe.
As a result of Google's failures in this regard, individuals could have been unaware that their location was being used to, for example, influence them with ads or to infer their interests
Graham Doyle, deputy commissioner of the Data Protection Commission
The Data Protection Commission initiated its own investigation in February 2020 as Google's primary supervisory body within the EU. This followed November 2018 complaints submitted by consumer advocacy groups representing seven nations, drawing on research by the Norwegian Consumer Council documenting how Google's interface design nudged users toward maintaining location tracking.
A Google representative responded to the Irish Examiner by characterizing the violation as involving "historical policies that have since been updated," referencing automatic deletion features rolled out beginning in 2019.
This represents the fourth-largest sanction the commission has issued since GDPR implementation, trailing only the €1.2 billion penalty imposed on Meta in 2023 for transferring European residents' data to the United States.
Source: The Next Web
