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Google to pay Indiana $20M to resolve privacy suit
- leereeves 4y agoThat's about $3 per person in Indiana. They must not have been able to demonstrate much harm if they're willing to settle for so little. Which I personally find unfortunate. I loathe location tracking and wish these penalties had real teeth.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago> They must not have been able to demonstrate much harm if they're willing to settle for so little. They probably had the cops put in a good word for how useful they find the tracking. I'm sure that didn't hurt.
- hutzlibu 4y agoOr anyone, who used the trafic overlay in google maps to spot traffic jam. But the simple cops don't really have access to googles internal data.
- dsfyu404ed 4y agoI assume when the cops show up with a subpoena that they get all of what Google has for the given set of parameters so I think Google's "shadow" location data that they use for traffic and other internal stuff would probably show.
- User23 4y agoNo monetary penalty has teeth. Unless the corporate veil is pierced and executives go to prison it’s just one more ordinary business expense. Edit: the US constitution has an extradition clause[1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_Clause https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_Clause
- dmix 4y agoI suspect that would result in low level employees getting scapegoated. It's important to evaluate the realities of how laws will work in practice, not just what we want ideally to happen. A corporation is a legal and tax framework, it might be difficult to tack on such a law without fundamentally changing how corporations operate. But this has been debate to death on HN, which is why I suspect you're being downvoted.
- INeedMoreRam 4y ago[dead]
- mulmen 4y agoThat’s not how business works. If the cost outweighs the benefit you adapt or fail. Most companies fail without anyone going to prison.
- barbazoo 4y agoWhy not have no cap and cause significant damage to the company. Would that be so bad? Would they all flee the country? Edit: it just occured to me that there are normal people out there just like me only super wealthy and just bribing politicians like it's nothing. It's nuts on a societal level. Imagine being so selfish.
- mulmen 4y agoIs there a cap? I actually have no idea how this amount was determined. It seems too low to persuade Google to change their ways but that's just like, my opinion, man. How much would it take for Google to change their business practices? Say there was a tax on holding and using personal information. At what point does Google say "this isn't worth it"?
- owlglass 4y agoRegarding the edit: is there anything to indicate that they're anything like you and me? Is hoarding resources in such excessive quantities at the cost of so many others not tantamount to a personality disorder?
- mulmen 4y agoDoes anyone have an idea of the value Google themselves place on individual location data? Is $3.00 within an order of magnitude?
- Terretta 4y agoNote that they pay Apple $15B a year just to be default search in a browser HN considers as having almost no share. Here are actual stats though: Considering Apple iPhone’s high user rate in the United States, it is no wonder that Safari, the browser pre-installed on every iPhone, is also widely used. When it comes to the overall browser market, however, Safari’s leading status gets lost: Chrome is the number one internet browser in the United States with a market share of about 50 percent, while Safari trails as a second with around 35 percent share. Safari lags even further behind in the desktop browser market, with only around 18 percent share. This correlates to Apple’s standing in the PC market: ranked as number four in the market as of the third quarter of 2021, Apple’s Mac computers enjoy a relatively niche yet loyal user group. With a nearly 60 percent share, Chrome is the dominating figure in the U.S. desktop browser market.
- lelandfe 4y ago> in a browser HN considers as having almost no share There's no need to attack strawmen, iOS Safari is clearly the winner in the US's mobile market: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/unite... That number is even more skewed for iOS users specifically, which is a very useful demographic for marketers. I've worked on US eCommerce sites whose entire site traffic was >80% iOS Safari users. The payment is high, but render unto Caesar.
- Tozen 4y agoNot only that, but the overall amount is chump change to Google. The people at Google likely settled with the widest possible grin on their faces. They know the settlement was of little consequence and lacking in deterrence.
- westonmyers 4y agoArticle and agreement say $20,000,000. Am I missing something?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- blamazon 4y agoI think OP article is about a subset of a larger federal-level settlement mentioned that was announced in November 2022: > NOVEMBER 14, 2022: Attorney General Josh Shapiro Announces $391 Million Settlement with Google Over Location Tracking Practices [1] [1]: https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/taking-action/attorney-general-josh-shapiro-announces-391-million-settlement-with-google-over-location-tracking-practices/ https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/taking-action/attorney-gener...
- sigmonsays 4y agoi've started researching my next phone without google services (Or strictly limited). Probably going with grapheneOS. Googles entire business is to track us and sell ads. So they're never going to change.
- eks391 4y agoAs a user of GrapheneOS, I strongly recommend. I did a few tests to check that it is doing what it claims, and as far as I can tell it is, and better than I expected. I will be staying with GrapheneOS for the foreseeable future.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- NayamAmarshe 4y ago[flagged]
- LarryMullins 4y agoBanality of evil.
- rdxm 4y ago[dead]
- LarryMullins 4y agoI think this headline gave me a stroke. They're settling for 29M with DC and Indiana, but -392M with other states? What does settling for negative money mean, the states pay Google? Also the details in the headline aren't in the article. The article doesn't mention "392M", nor DC.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tedunangst 4y agoWhat kind of deterrent effect does a -$392M settlement have?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- CamelCaseName 4y agoBypass: https://archive.is/Y6Eky https://archive.is/Y6Eky Not sure why I got access denied... (Cloudflare Error 1020)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mistrial9 4y agothis is a cited Associated Press article that is credited for starting the ball rolling https://archive.is/QtVvs https://archive.is/QtVvs
- userbinator 4y agoIronically, despite the fact that I run into Cloudflare blocks frequently, I could read the original article. On the other hand, your archive.is link does result in a CF block for me.
- dang 4y agoWe changed the URL from https://events.in.gov/event/attorney_general_todd_rokita_secures_20_million_settlement_with_google_under_same_indiana_law_being_used_against_tiktok https://events.in.gov/event/attorney_general_todd_rokita_sec... to a third party article with a bit more background. If there's a better source, we can change it again.
- Terretta 4y agoFWIW, the URL I was originally submitting was: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3794301-google-to-pay-29-5-million-to-settle-dc-indiana-lawsuits-over-location-tracking/ https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3794301-google-to-pay-... I changed it to the release instead of the third party backgrounder, but had kept the article title: "Google has agreed to pay $29.5M to settle lawsuits with Washington DC and Indiana over location tracking practices, after agreeing to pay ~$392M to 40 US states" -- Jared Gans / The Hill
- johndhi 4y agoTo folks who are saying this isn't enough or that we need to put executives in jail: you are all thinking from a systems/framer perspective and not from how the law actually works. The law says it actually has to be violated for damages to come into play, and then those damages need to be reliably proven. It's very hard or impossible to show hard, quantifiable economic harm from someone storing your geolocation data on a server. This is why the settlement isn't huge - though to be clear imo this is a fairly large settlement.
- bb88 4y agoIf you made $200k/year and then were told you had to pay $20 to settle a lawsuit with the state of Indiana, because of some questionable charge, would you pay it or fight it? That's the scale of this if Google were a person. Because the state of Indiana is so anti-tax that it can no longer fund their own government through taxes alone, lawsuits like this become important sources of revenue.
- brianwawok 4y agoAs a resident of Indiana, our state is generally in fine financial shape. Looking at Illinois and Michigan to either side, I would 10000% take the financial situation in my state. Illinois is a pension time bomb. Michigan can’t support their infrastructure.
- rolenthedeep 4y agoAs a person who has driven on rt 275 past Lawrenceburg, I'm rather surprised to hear this. That stretch of road is apocalyptic
- brianwawok 4y agoAlmost every state has a meme “well this sure beats <my state> roads” Heard it in Illinois. Heard it in Indiana. Heard it in Michigan. Everyone thinks their state roads are terrible. The truth is, some little side roads don’t get much love in all states. We honestly built up too much roads, and it would bankrupt all states to care for all of these roads. The answer is to drop some roads, and covert others to gravel or dirt. But doing this is political suicide, so no one does this… so we just have some little roads and little bridges in real bad shape.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 4y agohttps://apnews.com/828aefab64d4411bac257a07c1af0ecb https://apnews.com/828aefab64d4411bac257a07c1af0ecb