Google employees recognized that 'setting to collect location information even if location information of Google application is turned off' is misleading and difficult.

Regarding the problem that ``the Google application continues to collect location information even if the Google application invalidates the location information of the terminal'' reported in 2018, a Google employee ``clearly misunderstands the setting regarding permission of location information of Google application It became clear that he knew that he would be invited.

Unsealed Google lawsuit docs show its own engineers were confused by privacy settings
https://www.azmirror.com/2020/08/24/unsealed-google-lawsuit-docs-show-its-own-engineers-were-confused-by-privacy-settings/

Unredacted suit shows Google's own engineers confused by privacy settings | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/08/unredacted-suit-shows-googles-own-engineers-confused-by-privacy-settings/

The cause of the problem was the problem that was reported in August 2018, 'even if the Google app invalidates the location information of the device, it continues to collect location information.' One example is that the Google Maps app saves the location information as a snapshot when it starts up, even if the location information is turned off in the privacy settings.

It turns out that the Google application continues to track and collect location data even if location information is invalid-GIGAZINE

Therefore, in order not to collect the location information of the terminal completely, turn off 'Location information' from the OS setting screen, turn off 'Use location history', and by default with Google account You must turn off 'Web and app activity' that is turned on.

Immediately before this report, the police had requested Google to provide the user's location information, and the public awareness of location information was increasing. Therefore, the difficulty of setting the location information of the Google app was strongly accused of being “intentionally misleading”.

In response to this criticism, the Arizona Attorney General's office has also started its own investigation into Google's location problems. In May 2020, Google sued Google for 'breaching Arizona consumer fraud laws.'

Is Android tracking location information illegally? Arizona sues Google | Real Sound | Real Sound Tech
https://realsound.jp/tech/2020/06/post-561013.html

Initially at the request of Google, some of the evidence was kept private in this case. However, on August 3, 2020, Digital Content Next , an industry organization related to digital content, and News Media Alliance, a news association in the US and Canada, requested disclosure of evidence documents. With the approval of this request by the judge, 'Google's internal documents' will be newly disclosed.

The newly disclosed Google internal document contained a large number of email and chat logs where employees of the company talked about location issues. As a result, some employees said, 'The current UI is difficult to understand for users.' 'We ship UI that confuses users.' It should be understood that it should mean 'to do', not 'except in this case and that case'.' It became clear that even Google employees knew that the settings for turning off location information in the Google app were too difficult to understand.

In addition, the disclosed internal documents also revealed that Google created and shared internally a daily report on how location issues were reported.

arizona-v-google-exhibit-219-225.pdf
(PDF file) https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/arizona-v-google-exhibit-219-225.pdf

In this daily report, the media's tone on the first day of the press was '100% negative,' and as the days went by, the problem became less noticeable.

A Google spokesman said, 'We've worked hard to improve our privacy controls by taking feedback from our users when it comes to location,' regarding a series of issues.

In May 2019, a function to automatically delete location information has appeared.

Google announces introduction of automatic deletion function for location information and web & app activity management-GIGAZINE