Google Accused of Using Dark Patterns to Trick Users

Washington, D.C. and Texas filed their complaints against Google Monday, with Indiana and Washington state expected to follow. The suits allege that Google violated D.C.’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act (CPPA) and Texas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Consumer Protection Act by lending customers a false sense of control over the company’s access to their data. While Google’s smartphones and web browser provide customers with plenty of chances to “opt out” of location tracking, the states argue that such opportunities merely provide customers with an illusion of choice. Even if a customer chooses to disallow location tracking, Google captures and stores location data anyway.

Google’s deception is, of course, said to be financially motivated. According to D.C.’s complaint, Google has a “powerful financial incentive” to track its customers location data: its advertising arm relies on it. By capturing the whereabouts and travel patterns of its millions upon millions of customers, Google can better target the ads that generate a majority of its revenue. If this isn’t violating enough, location data can reveal much more about a person than where on the planet they’ve stood. “Even a limited amount of [location] data, gathered over time, can expose a person’s identity and routines,” D.C.’s lawsuit states. “Location can also be used to infer personal details such as political or religious affiliation, sexual orientation, income, health status, or participation in support groups, as well as major life events, such as marriage, divorce, and the birth of children.” These details further inform the ads that help line Google’s pockets.

The lawsuits aren’t really about the pros and cons of location tracking, though. If a customer is fine with Google knowing the intimate details of their life and indicates so when prompted, that’s all well and good. It’s when a customer is tracked following the revocation of consent that the law may have a problem. That being said, the futile nature of any Google user’s attempt to keep their location data private may also contribute to their likelihood to give up the fight, according to D.C.’s complaint. “Google makes extensive use of dark patterns,” the complaint reads, “including repeated nudging, misleading pressure tactics, and evasive and deceptive descriptions of location features and settings, to cause users to provide more and more location data (inadvertently or out of frustration).”

As with any lawsuit against a massive tech corporation, Google stands ready to lay these allegations to rest. “The attorneys general are bringing a case based on inaccurate claims and outdated assertions about our settings,” Google spokesman José Castañeda said in a statement. “We have always built privacy features into our products and provided robust controls for location data. We will vigorously defend ourselves and set the record straight.”

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