The State Arizona sued Google in May alleging that the company deceived users about its privacy settings and collection of personal data. A newly released document reveals that Google’s own engineers believe that the company “confuses users” and even some employees about privacy on the company’s platforms.
Business Insider reports that new information in a lawsuit relating to Google’s data collection and location-tracking practices include statements from the company’s own engineers who believe that the company confuses both users and some employees on the topic of privacy.
The office of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich sued Google in May, alleging that the company deceived users about the location tracking data that it collects, continuing to track users even after they opted out of location tracking in privacy settings.
A version of the lawsuit which was made public on Friday included multiple statements from Google employees acknowledging the poor design choices of Google’s privacy settings which made it difficult for users to easily opt-out of location tracking.
One employee stated in the court documents that the Google privacy settings user interface “feels like it is designed to make things possible, yet difficult enough that people won’t figure it out.” Another said that it was “Definitely confusing from a user point of view if we need googlers [to] explain it to us.”
A Google spokesperson told the Arizona Mirror: “Privacy controls have long been built into our services and our teams work continuously to discuss and improve them. In the case of location information, we’ve heard feedback, and have worked hard to improve our privacy controls. In fact, even these cherry picked published extracts state clearly that the team’s goal was to ‘Reduce confusion around Location History Settings.'”
The attorney general’s office alleges that “even top-level Google employees do not understand under what conditions Google collects location data.”
Read more at Business Insider here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
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