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Google could be fined up to $4 billion amid GDPR Privacy Violations

Group Planning feature on google maps

Several complaints have been filed by different consumer groups in seven European countries against Google location tracking according to Reuters.

The complaint filed by groups are the part of European Consumer Organization (BEUC), according to the details the BEUC claims that Google is involved in deceptive practices in its location tracking option which doesn’t provide a choice to users about how to enable/disable it. Also, Google doesn’t provide information on what this GPS tracking does and benefits who. If this complaint is taken seriously by the regulators Google could face yet again a huge fine.

Each group has issued complaints to their respective national data protection authorities keeping with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules, came soon after it was revealed that Google can track user’s location at any time anywhere even if the location history option is turned off, The Verge reported.

The location tracking is associated with another setting “Web and App Activity” and this is enabled by default, it must be disabled completely in order to opt out from GPS tracking.

BEUC claims that Google is indulged in deceptive practices and get users to enable both these options and doesn’t fully inform users what this option does neither it takes full consent from the users.

Google on the other side responded to the complaint and said “Location History is by default turned off, and disabling it does not stop all location tracking. The search engine giant said it would read the content of the report to see if there any information needed to take on board.

The GDPR violations are taken seriously in the European countries, previously another tech giant Facebook had to face GDPR complaint, the data privacy Irish commissioner said the regulator will investigate Facebook over a security breach which affected 29 million accounts.

The cases and complaints regarding GDPR violations still not tested in courts so no one has the idea what would be the outcome of these complaints, however, if the consumer groups have a strong case then the fine could be as its 2017 filings more than $4 billion up to 4% of its global revenues, said The Verge.