Unedited documents in the Arizona lawsuit against Google show that company bosses and engineers were aware that the search giant had made it difficult for smart users to privatize local information, Intern reported.
The documents suggest that Google collected local data even after users turned off local sharing, and made it difficult to find privacy settings for users. Intern also reports that the documents show that Google pressured phone manufacturers to keep private settings hidden because the settings were popular with users.
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a lawsuit against Google last May, claiming that the company illegally tracked the location of Android users without their consent, even if users disabled local tracking features. The lawsuit suggested that Google continued local tracking running in the background for some features, and stopped the practice only when users disabled system tracking.
The unedited documents show that one Google employee asked if there was “no way to give third-party apps your place and not Google?” adding that it didn’t sound like something the company would want to reveal to the media, according to Intern.
Google spokesman José Castañeda said in an email to The Edge that Brnovich “and our competitors leading this process have gone out of their way to mis-characterize our services. We have always incorporated privacy features into our products and provided robust controls for local data. We look forward to straightening the record.”
Update on May 29, 20:11 ET: Added a statement from a Google spokesperson