Tracked location without users' consent, Google will pay $62 million in fines

A sum of $62 million will be paid to a group of users as a result of an investigation that proved that Google stored their location history even after they had not agreed to it.

Six years ago, Google assured users that their data would not be tracked if they turned off the location history option on their devices, but an investigation revealed that things were a little different.

The result is that a portion of said amount will be distributed to 21 non-profit organizations, which will then pass it on to their beneficiaries. Further, $18.6 million will be awarded for attorney's fees.

Google, according to the document confirming the decision, had to stop tracking users' location the moment they turned off the option in their Google Account.

Instead, even when this option was disabled, whenever users activated a Google service, their location was tracked – this included apps like Google Maps, weather apps and even search via the Google Chrome browser.