Class Action Do Not Track Google Lawsuit

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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We are sure you remember it being kicked around last week that Google was tracking your location through your smartphone, even when you have Location History turned off. The transparent trick is that you have to turn off "Web and App Activity" as well, which again is transparent. It seems that some folks are not buying all this Google transparency and are suing Google over it. Napoleon Patacsil of San Diego is cutting short to the chase and going full class action!

According to a complaint filed late Friday, Google falsely assures people they won’t be tracked if they turn the “Location History” feature on their phones to “off,” and instead violates their privacy by monitoring and storing their movements.

“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.
 
I fully support this actually. The whole thing just screams of loophole BS by Google. I'll admit, I was one of the fools that thought when I turned off the Location and Location History that I was no longer being tracked.
 
If you carry one of these Personalized Tracking Devices(PTD), thinking that changing an OS setting will stop the tracking is just plain silly. Too much money involved with monetizing the data collected by PTDs. Even if Google reverted back to 'Do No Evil', many of the non Goggle apps on your PTD will still do evil.

Worse, your connected cars are also becoming PTDs. A Wall Street Journal article a couple days ago mentioned the car companies are figuring out how to monetize all the data the cars are collecting, including, wait for it, personalized ads fed to your PTD entertainment systems. Soon, as the Carl's JR becomes visible on the street, an ad for a CJ burger might well interrupt whatever you had planned on listening to.
 
Ugh... this is almost enough for me to consider using Apple Products. Problem is they have no midrange option. It's either full monty or barely useable SE. I use a VPN and noticed when using chrome on my PC the other day it was still showing my city on some website. I think I am switching that over to Mozilla as well, they seem to have a real respect for privacy. Google continues to strengthen their relationship to China which scares me. I think they are trying to gain favor as the Chinese Government threatens Apple over the trade war. And as far as the microphone issue, I have read articles debunking this, but I swear I experience it too. You can have a conversation about something and without searching it, it shows up as ads on Facebook and other sites. Crazy.
 
Funny thing is the little 'tech shaming' scene they present when you have (allegedly) turned off the location and web activity - Google presents a sad, lonely cactus scene - probably pining for the rich social flora of the data mines. Cute. But appropriate. I do feel quite prickly using any of their 'free' services.
 
vegeta535 said:
Can't wait til I get my check for 50c in 5 years.
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I got over $100 back from one of the DRAM price fixing class actions.

How much do you think you deserve to get paid for doing literally nothing? You can opt-out and sue Google yourself if you have the means, or you can let the class action do the work for you. Either way users win and Google gets punished for being a bag of dicks.
 
darckhart said:
Yep. I'm in the market for a new old car. :)

Also don't you think it's stupid that there's so many laws against distracted driving, yet car "infotainment" systems get more and more complex and pervasive?
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Imagine when you turn on Android Auto from google.
 
If someone has "monetized" me, my actions, or my data, why was my permission not explicitly sought for each and every "monetized" exploit?

If my actions gave wealth to someone else without my permission, how is that not a form of slavery? No, I don't have to be sweating in a plantation field to be exploited. Oh, wait: they did this for my benefit.

See, it's okay if they have altruistic motives. Got it.
 
atom said:
Ugh... this is almost enough for me to consider using Apple Products. Problem is they have no midrange option. It's either full monty or barely useable SE. I use a VPN and noticed when using chrome on my PC the other day it was still showing my city on some website. I think I am switching that over to Mozilla as well, they seem to have a real respect for privacy. Google continues to strengthen their relationship to China which scares me. I think they are trying to gain favor as the Chinese Government threatens Apple over the trade war. And as far as the microphone issue, I have read articles debunking this, but I swear I experience it too. You can have a conversation about something and without searching it, it shows up as ads on Facebook and other sites. Crazy.
Click to expand...

And people still think Apple doesn't track....I am not really sure why. They do, and many have said Apples user data is some of the richest in the world, even more so than Google (let that sink in for a second). Some data from Apple is not sold yet, but it is 100% collected.
 
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Mut1ny said:
What a stupid thing to say. How much do you think Google has made off of people tracking them without their permission using their bullshit loop holes?
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I'm not sure what you're trying to argue...

I'm saying that in general class-action payouts tend to be fairly small because you don't have to do any of the work or pay a lawyer yourself. This is exactly what class-actions are for, situations where a company is behaving badly but the damages to any one customer don't rise to the level that someone will sue to stop the behavior.
 
darckhart said:
I don't know if there's been any updates since this article where they say they collect stuff but it's all totally private and non-identifying:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/01/sponsored_links_come_to_firefox/
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Crazy and not true. I went into my settings to disable this stuff and was shocked at what I found. It keeps track of all my locations, and actually labeled my Home as "Home" without me ever telling it that's my address. Every webpage I have ever visited with Google Chrome on PC or my phone was stored on the cloud. I am very very disappointed in myself for not realizing Google was doing this. My browser keeps its own history, I don't want it on Google's servers. Imagine what a state government could do if they convinced Google of having access to this.

I am now using Brave, a privacy based browser based off of Chrome. Check it out.
 
atom said:
I am now using Brave, a privacy based browser based off of Chrome. Check it out.
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You may also want to look into "ungoogled chromium" and "iridium" where they remove the google bits. You may also want to look into the extensions "privacy badger" and "scriptsafe." On my phone I'm trying out duckduckgo browser.
 
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