Today, we have a shocking piece of news for you. It is not pleasant neither is it upbeat. It definitely deserves your attention and can harm the world. Google has just been sued! Over what, you ask? Apparently, they had been accessing the location even when it was off.
In the codes, if ethics and morality, can be considered as a punch in the face. It seems that all respect for boundaries has been tossed out the window with this one act. It is highly unethical to be tracking the location when it’s turned off. Off means no consent given and that should be respected.
Google Facing Consequences
The lawsuit was actually filed by the US state of Arizona. It argued that Google was using its abilities for adverse effects. They said that Google tracked people without their consent and this was highly unethical. The case was originally filed in 2020. However, unedited court documents have revealed themselves recently.
Apparently, as seen in the documents, this problem went higher up in management. It seems that the too engineers at Google were aware of this happening and did nothing to stop it. In fact, it gives the impression that this was being endorsed on all ends, without accountability. This includes the top executives and engineers.
Breach Of Privacy
Of course, this cannot be considered as anything less than a breach of privacy. One may start to feel like Will Smith from ‘Enemy Of the state’. We might all soon have NSA spying on us, tracking our every move. After this, how can many of Google’s top fans trust the company? They seem to have fabricated many things and are seen going against their own principles.
There is more to those documents here, however. It seems that Google made it difficult for users to find privacy settings. How is that not a clear admission of guilt? You are keeping people away from trying to adjust their privacy settings. This means that you must be up to something not considered okay.
Internet Security
The lawsuit aims for Google to pay back all the money it has collected through this. If found guilty, Google will be paying fines of $10,000 on every violation. We have yet to see how the case unfolds further but these are the details we have for you so far.
In defence, Google is arguing that this lawsuit is just trying to mischaracterise its services. So, there are many people on the fence here. However, the mere existence of such a lawsuit indicates that something is not right here. The company further said that its privacy settings are never hard to find and have robust security features.
Stay tuned for more from Brandsynario!