Google reaches $39.9 million privacy settlement with Washington state

Google will pay Washington state $39.9 million to resolve a lawsuit accusing the Alphabet Inc unit of misleading consumers about its location tracking practices, state attorney general Bob Ferguson said on Thursday.

The settlement resolves claims that Google deceived people into believing they controlled how the search and advertising company collected and used their personal data.

In reality, the state said Google was able to collect and profit from that data even if consumers disabled its tracking technology on their smartphones and computers, invading consumers’ privacy.