Indiana gets double the money after splitting off from multistate lawsuit
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita announced on Thursday a $20 million settlement with Google to resolve Indiana’s lawsuit against Google for deceptive location tracking practices.
The attorney general filed a separate, independent lawsuit when negotiations between the company and a coalition of state attorneys general stalled. As a result, Indiana received approximately twice as much money as it would have received as part of the settlement that was later reached with the 40 states that did not file lawsuits against Google.
Rokita
“This settlement is another manifestation of our steadfast commitment to protect Hoosiers from Big Tech’s intrusive schemes,” Rokita said. “We will continue holding these companies accountable for their improper manipulation of consumers.”
Google’s deceptive practices became widely known following a 2018 story by the Associated Press. After that story, multiple states began investigating Google’s location tracking practices.
As detailed in Indiana’s lawsuit, Google uses location data collected from Indiana consumers to build detailed user profiles and target ads, but Google has deceived and misled users about its practices since at least 2014.
Rokita aggressively pursued litigation against Google because even a limited amount of location data can expose a person’s identity and routines. Such data can be used to infer personal details such as political or religious affiliation, income, health status or participation in support groups – as well as major life events such as marriage and the birth of children.
With this settlement, Rokita has ensured that Hoosiers are no longer coerced into trading away their privacy.
This lawsuit was handled by an experienced litigation team including Doug Swetnam, Vanessa Voigt Gould, and Jennifer Van Dame – who tenaciously pursued complex data privacy theories in a Hoosier courtroom against a well-resourced adversary.