TACD urges FTC to investigate Google’s location tracking

Today, TACD has sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission explaining how Google manipulates users into constant location tracking.

The letter follows the publication of TACD member the Norwegian Consumer Council’s (NCC) latest research “Every Step You Take”, which follows on from the “Deceived by Design” report released in June 2018.

The latest report investigates Google’s location tracking practices and how users are being manipulated into enabling Location History and Web & App activity settings including through repeated nudging and hidden default settings.

Based on the report findings, several European consumer organisations consider Google to be in breach of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and have issued formal complaints to their national Data Protection Authorities asking them to investigate the legitimacy of the legal basis and purposes for collection of location data.

Read the full letter here.