Google sued over location marketing practices: Why transparency is important when collecting user data
Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2024 10:20 am
Moema Vianna
Feb 4, 22 | 5 min read
google location
Reading time: 4 minutes
Have you ever had that feeling of being monitored all the time? Every place you go, every step you take? Well, Google is being sued by attorneys general in different US states for using “deceptive and unfair practices” to obtain users’ location data.
Essentially, the lawsuit accuses the world's largest search engine of using "dark patterns" to deliver more location data. Dark patterns are a kind of "trick" included in the design of the website or application that induces users to perform an action that they would not explicitly choose.
Please see this article for more details on the process, what Google (claims) to have done, and finally, the importance of capturing user data transparently.
Google's response
The bipartisan lawsuit, backed by Democratic list of tunisia consumer email and Republican attorneys general from DC, Indiana, Texas and Washington, alleges that between 2014 and 2019, Google misled users into believing that turning off their location history settings would prevent their data from being tracked.
On the other hand, the company claims to have made many improvements in relation to location data in recent years, making management easier for users and therefore increasing transparency.
In: API Topics. Out: FLoC
Additionally, Google recently announced that the FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) project will be replaced by the Topics API.
FLoC is a (somewhat controversial) proposal to replace cookies with interest-based advertising. Basically, the idea was to group users with compatible interests. But, as we said, even before its launch, FLoC was heavily criticised by data protection authorities and was shelved.
In the proposed Topics API, the idea is that as users move around the web, the browser will “learn” about their interests. Initially, the browser will keep user data in its history for 3 weeks and the number of topics is limited to 300, but there are already plans to increase this number.
The websites visited by the user are categorized based on these topics, and in case a website has not been categorized before, it will be done by a machine learning algorithm, which will suggest an estimated topic. Thus, Google will understand the interests of a user.
When accessing any website that supports the Google API, three topics that the user has been interested in over the past 3 weeks will be shared. This list of topics will be chosen randomly from the top 5 topics each week.
Thinking about data shared for advertising purposes, the Topics API actually allows for greater privacy. Also, an important point is that sensitive data such as gender, race and sexual orientation will not be provided, avoiding any possibility of discrimination by advertisers.
Google also says it offers users settings that allow for much more control and transparency than the current format. In the future, each person will be able to edit their list of topics, reviewing, deleting and even deactivating them.
The company also provides a comprehensive page to guide users on how to manage location history data. The page offers information on how to enable, disable, and even delete history.
Why is this an important issue?
At this point, you might be wondering why we are covering this topic. Simple: because the way we capture and use user data is very important. And it needs to be transparent!
Among the data Google collects from consumers, location information is among the most sensitive and, if collected, whether over a short or long period of time, can expose a person (their identity, routine, etc.) or allow for the deduction of personal information, such as membership in political/religious groups and marriage, among many others.
This is by no means the first data privacy scandal that has forced companies to make choices (and that has especially alarmed those who rely on ads to drive their marketing campaigns).
Last year, Apple launched the iPhone privacy feature App Tracking Transparency (ATT) and required apps to ask users for permission before tracking them across other apps and websites.
Not only was this a problem for the vendor who relied entirely on tracking data, but it also caused real financial damage to some social platforms. According to one report, companies like Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter lost over $10 billion in advertising revenue following Apple’s privacy changes.
And of course, that, like the controversies over the Google lawsuit, has most marketers concerned.
In Digital Marketing, it is impossible to think of any strategy without using data. We know that it is essential to better understand the profile of the client or potential client and, based on this, offer more appropriate content and products or services.
In this case, transparency is even more necessary. Authorization must be requested and users must always be made clear what data is being collected, as well as offering an “opt-out” option, for example.
After all, what's the point of having thousands of contacts in your database if they're not interested in what you're offering? Or if out of every 10 emails you send, the user opens 1?
Feb 4, 22 | 5 min read
google location
Reading time: 4 minutes
Have you ever had that feeling of being monitored all the time? Every place you go, every step you take? Well, Google is being sued by attorneys general in different US states for using “deceptive and unfair practices” to obtain users’ location data.
Essentially, the lawsuit accuses the world's largest search engine of using "dark patterns" to deliver more location data. Dark patterns are a kind of "trick" included in the design of the website or application that induces users to perform an action that they would not explicitly choose.
Please see this article for more details on the process, what Google (claims) to have done, and finally, the importance of capturing user data transparently.
Google's response
The bipartisan lawsuit, backed by Democratic list of tunisia consumer email and Republican attorneys general from DC, Indiana, Texas and Washington, alleges that between 2014 and 2019, Google misled users into believing that turning off their location history settings would prevent their data from being tracked.
On the other hand, the company claims to have made many improvements in relation to location data in recent years, making management easier for users and therefore increasing transparency.
In: API Topics. Out: FLoC
Additionally, Google recently announced that the FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) project will be replaced by the Topics API.
FLoC is a (somewhat controversial) proposal to replace cookies with interest-based advertising. Basically, the idea was to group users with compatible interests. But, as we said, even before its launch, FLoC was heavily criticised by data protection authorities and was shelved.
In the proposed Topics API, the idea is that as users move around the web, the browser will “learn” about their interests. Initially, the browser will keep user data in its history for 3 weeks and the number of topics is limited to 300, but there are already plans to increase this number.
The websites visited by the user are categorized based on these topics, and in case a website has not been categorized before, it will be done by a machine learning algorithm, which will suggest an estimated topic. Thus, Google will understand the interests of a user.
When accessing any website that supports the Google API, three topics that the user has been interested in over the past 3 weeks will be shared. This list of topics will be chosen randomly from the top 5 topics each week.
Thinking about data shared for advertising purposes, the Topics API actually allows for greater privacy. Also, an important point is that sensitive data such as gender, race and sexual orientation will not be provided, avoiding any possibility of discrimination by advertisers.
Google also says it offers users settings that allow for much more control and transparency than the current format. In the future, each person will be able to edit their list of topics, reviewing, deleting and even deactivating them.
The company also provides a comprehensive page to guide users on how to manage location history data. The page offers information on how to enable, disable, and even delete history.
Why is this an important issue?
At this point, you might be wondering why we are covering this topic. Simple: because the way we capture and use user data is very important. And it needs to be transparent!
Among the data Google collects from consumers, location information is among the most sensitive and, if collected, whether over a short or long period of time, can expose a person (their identity, routine, etc.) or allow for the deduction of personal information, such as membership in political/religious groups and marriage, among many others.
This is by no means the first data privacy scandal that has forced companies to make choices (and that has especially alarmed those who rely on ads to drive their marketing campaigns).
Last year, Apple launched the iPhone privacy feature App Tracking Transparency (ATT) and required apps to ask users for permission before tracking them across other apps and websites.
Not only was this a problem for the vendor who relied entirely on tracking data, but it also caused real financial damage to some social platforms. According to one report, companies like Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter lost over $10 billion in advertising revenue following Apple’s privacy changes.
And of course, that, like the controversies over the Google lawsuit, has most marketers concerned.
In Digital Marketing, it is impossible to think of any strategy without using data. We know that it is essential to better understand the profile of the client or potential client and, based on this, offer more appropriate content and products or services.
In this case, transparency is even more necessary. Authorization must be requested and users must always be made clear what data is being collected, as well as offering an “opt-out” option, for example.
After all, what's the point of having thousands of contacts in your database if they're not interested in what you're offering? Or if out of every 10 emails you send, the user opens 1?