Google has agreed to pay a coalition of 40 state attorneys general almost $400 million for what the AGs said was misleading millions of users about Google location-tracking data, which it uses for digital advertising. It is just the latest black mark on Big Tech’s data handling practices.

An investigation found that Google had not notified users that location tracking was automatic for web and app activity — on Google Maps, Search and Chrome — on the site.

Google did tell users they could turn off tracking in "Location History," but it failed to mention that the "Web & App Activity" setting also was collecting location data.

In addition to forking more than $391.5 million, Google has agreed as part of the settlement to be more transparent.

"Big tech companies should not collect consumers' data without their awareness or consent," New York State Attorney General Letitia James said. Her state got $20 million of the settlement.

The AG investigation was launched in 2018, prompted by an Associated Press story about Google tracking locations (via "Web & App Activity") even when users opted out of location tracking.

James’s office said the settlement requires Google to:

• "Show additional information to users whenever they turn a location-related account setting 'on' or 'off';  
• "Make key information about location tracking unavoidable for users (i.e., not hidden);" and
• "Give users detailed information about the types of location data Google collects and how it’s used at an enhanced ‘Location Technologies' webpage."

The agreement "limits Google's use and storage of certain types of location information and requires Google account controls to be more user-friendly," James added. ▪️

Invoking YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, Twitch and others, as well as fringe site 4chan, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James are calling for a government crackdown on online platforms, saying they contributed to the Buffalo mass shooting that left 10 dead and three injured.

Among the things they want to see are getting internet-service providers more involved in controlling edge provider content that leads to radicalization and violence, creating a version of “tape delay” for live streaming and the taking of “reasonable steps to prevent unlawful violent criminal content” — the quid pro quo for Section 230 immunity from liability for third-party content.

The pair released a report on the role of online platforms in the shooting that concluded, among other things, that “a lack of oversight, transparency and accountability of these platforms allowed hateful and extremist views to proliferate online, leading to radicalization and violence.”

They say there need to be changes made to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides immunity from civil liability for most third-party posts on social media platforms.

Among the changes they recommend are new state laws that would criminalize a perpetrator’s creation of graphic images of a homicide and would penalize with civil liability anyone or any platform that reshares or reposts such images or videos.

“The tragic shooting in Buffalo exposed the real dangers of unmoderated online platforms that have become breeding grounds for white supremacy,” said James, who shared the report's findings with victims’ families.

James was laying some of the blame for recent mass shootings on edge providers. “We saw this happen in Christchurch, Charlottesville, El Paso, and Buffalo, and we cannot wait for another tragedy before we take action,” she said. “Online platforms should be held accountable for allowing hateful and dangerous content to spread on their platforms.”

Following the shooting, Hochul, whose hometown is Buffalo, asked the attorney general’s office to produce the study. James’s office said it subpoenaed thousands of pages of documents obtained under subpoena from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Rumble.

The report concluded that:

• “Fringe Platforms Fuel Radicalization: By his own account, the Buffalo shooter was radicalized by virulent racist and antisemitic content on anonymous, virtually unmoderated websites and platforms that operate outside of the mainstream internet, most notably 4chan. In the wake of the Buffalo shooting, graphic video of the shooting recorded by a viewer of the shooter’s livestream proliferated on fringe sites. The anonymity offered by 4chan and platforms like it, and their refusal to moderate content in any meaningful way, ensures that these platforms continue to be breeding grounds for racist hate speech and radicalization.
• “Livestreaming Has Become a Tool for Mass Shooters: Livestreaming has become a tool of mass shooters to instantaneously publicize their crime, further terrorizing the community targeted by the shooter and serving as a mechanism to incite and solicit additional violent acts. The Buffalo shooter was galvanized by his belief that others would be watching him commit violence in real time. Although the platform he used to live-stream his atrocities disabled the live stream within two minutes of the onset of violence, two minutes is still too much.”
• “Mainstream Platforms’ Moderation Policies Are Inconsistent and Opaque: Many large, established platforms improved on their response time for identifying and removing problematic content related to the Buffalo shooting, including graphic video of the shooting and the shooter’s manifesto, as compared to past events. However, the platforms’ responses were uneven, with one platform unable to identify posts that linked to off-site copies of the shooting video even after those posts were flagged through user reports. Many platforms also do not fully disclose how they moderate hateful, extremist, or racist content.
• “Online Platforms Lack Accountability: Online platforms enjoy too much legal immunity. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act largely insulates platforms from liability for their content moderation decisions, even when a platform allows users to post and share unlawful content.”

Recommendations for Reform

Given those findings, Hochul and James said action was needed and recommended the following reforms:

• “Add Restrictions to Livestreaming: Livestreaming was used as a tool by the Buffalo shooter, like previous hate-fueled attacks, to instantaneously document and broadcast his violent acts to secure a measure of fame and radicalize others. Livestreaming on platforms should be subject to restrictions — including verification requirements and tape delays — tailored to identify first-person violence before it can be widely disseminated.
• “Reform Section 230: Currently, Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act protects online platforms from liability for third-party content that they host, regardless of those platforms’ moderation practices. Congress should rethink the ready availability of Section 230 as a complete defense for online platforms’ content moderation practices. Instead, the law should be reformed to require an online platform that wishes to retain Section 230’s protections to take reasonable steps to prevent unlawful violent criminal content from appearing on the platform. This proposal would change the default. Instead of simply being able to assert protection under Section 230, an online platform has the initial burden of establishing that its policies and practices were reasonably designed to address unlawful content.
• “Increase Transparency and Strengthen Moderation: Online platforms should provide better transparency into their content moderation policies and how those policies are applied in practice, including those that are aimed at addressing hateful, extremist, and racist content. They should also invest in improving industry-wide processes and procedures for reducing the prevalence of such content, including by expanding the types of content that can be analyzed for violations of their policies, improving detection technology, and providing even more efficient means to share information.
• “Call on Industry Service Providers to Do More: Online service providers, like domain registrars and hosting companies, stand in between fringe sites and users. These companies should take a closer look at the websites that repeatedly traffic in violent, hateful content, and refuse to service sites that perpetuate the cycle of white supremacist violence." ■

Attorney General Letitia James is warning consumers of streaming and social media to beware of ads from "deceptive online sports betting companies" during the Super Bowl.

Online sports betting only became legal in New York in January and James said New Yorkers have been bombarded with come-ons for "risk free bets" and "$1,000 welcome offers." Online sports book ads online and on-air have been bombarding the country at large of late with some big name actors and sports figures touting in-game betting, parlays and the like.

James said the free bet offers often come with strings attached that consumers may miss. She said that online sports betting companies whose ads mislead consumers "can expect to hear from my office."

James offered some tips: 1) "Learn what other users are saying about the platform"; 2) "Read the fine print on bonuses and other promotions"; and 3) "Beware of unexpected restrictions on accessing your account."

James also included links in her statement to the New York Council on Problem Gambling and Gamblers Anonymous. ■

Thirty-seven states attorneys general -- including both Democrats and Republicans and co-led by New York AG Letitia James -- have filed suit against Google pledging to end what they call its illegal monopoly.

For James it is the second suit against the company this year.

They allege that Google has engaged in anticompetitive conduct, including exclusionary contracts, in an attempt to maintain monopoly control over mobile app distribution and in-app payments.

Among the specific allegations are that the company 1) imposes technical barriers that discourage distributing apps outside the Play Store; 2) does not allow Android to be an "open source"; 3) requires contracts that foreclosed competition; 4) buys off potential competitors; and 5) unlawfully ties use of its pay processor to Google Play distribution.

Also Read: More States Sue Google Over Antitrust Allegations

They say that Google required app developers to use Google Billing for Google Play Store, forcing them to pay up to a 30% commission indefinitely.

“Google has served as the gatekeeper of the internet for many years, but, more recently, it has also become the gatekeeper of our digital devices — resulting in all of us paying more for the software we use every day,” said James. “Once again, we are seeing Google use its dominance to illegally quash competition and profit to the tune of billions."

James also co-led a December antitrust suit against Google, including many of the same AGs. That suit alleged anticompetitive conduct related to general search and advertising.

Also Read: States Sue Facebook Charging Unlawful Monopoly

Other states filing suit were co-leads Utah, North Carolina, Tennessee, as well as Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

In a blog post in response to the suit, Wilson White, senior director of public policy for Google, said: "[I]t’s strange that a group of state attorneys general chose to file a lawsuit attacking a system that provides more openness and choice than others. This complaint mimics a similarly meritless lawsuit filed by the large app developer Epic Games, which has benefitted from Android’s openness by distributing its Fortnite app outside of Google Play.

"We understand that scrutiny is appropriate, and we’re committed to engaging with regulators. But Android and Google Play provide openness and choice that other platforms simply don’t," Wilson wrote. "This lawsuit isn’t about helping the little guy or protecting consumers. It’s about boosting a handful of major app developers who want the benefits of Google Play without paying for it. Doing so risks raising costs for small developers, impeding their ability to innovate and compete, and making apps across the Android ecosystem less secure for consumers."

New York State has completed its investigation into comments in the FCC's net neutrality rule proceeding, concluding that millions of fraudulent comments were submitted by lead generators employed by broadband companies, but the office of Attorney General Letitia James said it found no evidence those companies had direct knowledge that the lead generators were engaging in fraud.

The three companies generating the bogus comments — Fluent, Inc.; Opt-Intelligence, Inc.; and React2Media, Inc. — agreed to pay $4.4 million in penalties and disgorgement.

Nonetheless, the report was a scathing condemnation of broadband companies, as indicated by the report's title, "How U.S. Companies & Partisans Hack Democracy to Undermine Your Voice."

The report did conclude that the broadband industry funded a "secret campaign" to generate millions of comments, saying it was to provide "cover" for their support of the FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules. "The effort was intended to create the appearance of widespread grassroots opposition to existing net neutrality rules, which — as described in an internal campaign planning document — would help provide “cover” for the FCC’s proposed repeal," the report said.

Also Read: AG Letitia James: Internet-Related Complaints Top New York List

Despite the finding, the broadband companies had broken no laws. The report said their conduct raised "serious concerns," including that the campaign organizers at those broadband companies "ignored several significant red flags as to the authenticity of the comments that were generated and the integrity of the process."

They said lack of oversight of the lead generators provided a fertile field for fraud.

"Instead of actually looking for real responses from the American people, marketing companies are luring vulnerable individuals to their websites with freebies, co-opting their identities, and fabricating responses that giant corporations are then using to influence the polices and laws that govern our lives," said James of the report.

Her office also had some advice for the future, including to:

1. "Advocacy groups to take steps to ensure they have obtained valid consent from an individual before submitting a comment or message to the government on their behalf,
2. "Agencies and legislatures that manage electronic systems that receive comments and messages to hold advocacy groups and their vendors more accountable for the comments they submit on behalf of individuals,
3. "Lawmakers to strengthen laws to deter the submission of deceptive and unauthorized comments to the government, and
4. "Agencies to adopt technical safeguards to protect against unauthorized bulk submissions using automation."

Three years ago, then New York State Attorney Eric Schneiderman launched an investigation into whether comments wrongfully used New Yorker's identities without their knowledge or consent.

That came after a Pew Research report found that many of the 21.7 million comments "seemed to include false or misleading personal information."

Internet-related beefs top the list of consumer complaints from New Yorkers, according to that state's attorney general, Letitia James, who kicked off National Consumer Protection Week Monday (March 1) by releasing a list of the top consumer complaints.

Rather than simply calling the complaints "complaints," which could have many causes, James billed the list as "the top consumer scams perpetrated against New Yorkers," but her announcement did not identify how all those complaints were directly related to the fraud she asserted.

Also Read: New York AG Wants MVPDs to Refund Subs for Missing Sports

"Internet-related" was the top category with 9.832 complaints in 2020, including over "internet services and service providers, data privacy and security, digital media, data breaches, frauds through internet manipulation."

Also Read: States Sue Facebook

Number two on the list was COVID-19 price gouging by online and brick and morder platforms for things like hand sanitizer, masks and toilet paper, followed by landlord-tenant disputes; health club fees during COVID-19--continuous fees, inability to cancel memberships; and auto "sales, service, financing and repair.

Google is getting hit with the legal equivalent of a swarm as more states join to sue over antitrust concerns.

A day after a Texas Republican Attorney General-led group of almost a dozen GOP state AGs filed suit against Google alleging monopolistic practices. A New York Democrat AG-led group of 38 more, both Democrats and Republicans, filed a similar suit.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said her state was co-leading the legal charge, suing Google for "illegal, anticompetitive conduct that has sought to maintain its monopoly power in the general search services and search advertising markets."

Also Read: Trump Sues Unlawful Monopolist Google

The latest suit alleges multiple antitrust violations and that Google has maintained its Web behemoth status using multiple forms of anticompetitive conduct.

While the Department of Justice also filed suit against Google back in October, James said the new suit goes further that DOJ's, which focused on exclusionary agreements.

Adam Cohen, director of economic policy for Google, responded to the suit in a blog post.

The New York et al. suit alleges that anticompetitive conduct comprises 1) exclusionary contracts that limit consumers access to competitors; discriminating against specialized search competitors like Expedia and Yelp, including by depriving them of "prime" Google results page real estate and favoring Google's own specialized search; and 3) rigging its search engine marketing tool SA360 by driving advertiser spending to Google, including by making Bing ads appear to perform worse than they actually do.

Also Read: Trump Sues Facebook

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia along with a motion to consolidate it with the DOJ case. It follows by a week one filed by New York and 47 other AGs against Facebook for "stifling competition to protect its monopoly power."

Also on Thursday, the Justice Department said that three additional states, Michigan, Wisconsin and California, had asked to join 11 other states in its October suit against Google. 

“Antitrust laws were designed to prevent consumer harm, and that standard has helped promote innovation," said Matt Schruers, president of computer association CCIA, whose members include Google. "This suit aims to police design choices made that improve Google’s product. Search design has been benefiting from constant redesign and updates, and regulators in the U.S. and abroad have concluded this has improved consumers’ experience. That’s exactly what competition promotes."

“It is great to see a bipartisan coalition of states stand up to Google for abusing its search monopoly,” said Justin Brookman, director of technology policy for Consumer Reports. “For far too long, Google has used its power to harm competition and undermine the digital rights of consumers. It is clear that without intervention, these markets will not become competitive. We hope this lawsuit and others are the start of a much needed and long overdue step up in antitrust enforcement in digital markets."

“Small businesses are hurting, and instead of helping them, these Attorneys General are trying to force middlemen between small businesses and their customers," said Connected Commerce Council President Jake Ward. "In every market, middlemen drive up costs, drive down value and drive small businesses further from their customers. Intervening on behalf of billion-dollar publicly-traded intermediaries insults small businesses and harms consumers. To do so now is nuts."

Most of the nation's state attorneys general, joined by the Federal Trade Commission, have filed a lawsuit charging that Facebook is an unlawful monopoly guilty of anticompetitive conduct.

The suit alleges the social media giant "thwarted competition and reduced consumer privacy for profit" over a decade.

The move comes only days after the  Justice Department sued the company alleging worker discrimination.

Related: Trump Sues Facebook

Over that time, says the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, the lead AG on the suit, "the social networking giant illegally acquired competitors in a predatory manner and cut services to smaller threats — depriving users from the benefits of competition and reducing privacy protections and services along the way — all in an effort to boost its bottom line through increased advertising revenue."

In total 48 states/commonwealths/territories/districts joined the suit, with Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and South Dakota the only no-shows among the states.

The FTC alleges that Facebook's purchases of WhatsAp and Instagram were examples of buying an emerging threat rather that competing. 

The FTC vote to file the suit along with the states was 3-2, with commissioners Noah Joshua Phillips and Christine S. Wilson dissenting.

The suit says Facebook's strategy to "build a competitive moat" around its business, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said, was to buy potential rivals before they could get big enough to challenge it, and to "suffocate and squash third-party developers that Facebook invited to utilize its platform."

The Justice Department and the FTC have been investigating how Facebook and other Silicon Valley powerhouses grew so large, and whether antitrust laws were unable to capture that strategy of buying rivals while they were small enough that the purchase did not trigger automatic antitrust reviews. 

To remedy that, James and the other AGs want the court to disallow Facebook from any acquisition valued at over $10 million without advance notice to them. 

IT also wants the court block the company from any anticompetitive behavior and provide any additional relief up to and including divestiture or restructuring of companies it "illegally" acquired. 

Facebook is specifically charged with violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which "makes it unlawful for any person to "monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations," as well as multiple violations of Section 7 of the Clayton Act, which "prohibits mergers and acquisitions where the effect "may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly." 

In response to the announced suit, Big Tech basher Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) cheered on the possible break-up, tweeting: "The Instagram and WhatsApp mergers with Facebook were anticompetitive, were meant to be anticompetitive, and should be broken up."

The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), whose members include Facebook, Google and Amazon, was not happy with the prospect of an Instagram/WhatsApp divestiture.

“CCIA strongly supports antitrust enforcement when consumers are harmed," said CCIA President Matt Schruers. " However, the remedy needs to be tailored to the evidence, and not based on an artificially narrow definition of the market.  Unwinding Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 is a drastic remedy that would not only harm consumers but also will have a chilling effect on innovation and the US innovation ecosystem.

“CCIA has supported merger reviews generally as a way for regulators to do analysis and make better future decisions. Refining policy through retrospective merger reviews can be useful for clarity and better outcomes. Using them to declare a ‘do-over’ for regulators when the mergers at issue were approved by the relevant authorities is inappropriate."

“We welcome the lawsuit by the FTC and the coalition of states against Facebook for its pattern of anti-competitive actions," said Justin Brookman, director of technology policy for Consumer Reports, himself a former FTC official. "For years Facebook has grown its dominance and power by acquiring emerging companies seen as a threat to its business and imposing unreasonable conditions on third-party developers. These actions have limited consumer choice, insulated the company from competitive pressures, and resulted in a worse online ecosystem. We hope that actions like this one will start to hold tech giants like Facebook accountable, limiting the amount of power they have on our communications and commerce online, and strengthen digital rights.”

New York attorney general Letitia James said that she has helped get money for women "who experienced sexual misconduct and workplace harassment by convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein" as part of a class action suit against the former studio mogul and now convicted rapist. 

The payment must still be approved by the the courts--district and bankruptcy--and would resolve the state's 2018 suit against The Weinstein Company LLC, Harvey Weinstein, and (brother) Robert Weinstein over both a hostile work environment and women who brought a class action suit saying they had been either sexually harassed or assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. 

The payment is also part of a larger global agreement in the bankruptcy plan for the company and its parent, Weinstein Company Holdings LLC. 

"The agreement ensures that women who experienced a hostile work environment, sexual harassment, and gender-based discrimination while working at The Weinstein Company, as well as sexual abuse by Harvey Weinstein, are entitled to obtain restitution, by creating a $18,875,000 victims’ compensation fund," said the attorney general's office. "This agreement is a win for every woman who has experienced sexual harassment, discrimination, intimidation, or retaliation by her employer," said James.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has called on cable and satellite carriers serving the state to cut consumers a break on their bills by reducing or eliminating the portions assigned to live sports programming since there really isn't any. 

Related: ESPN Cancels X Games 

The letters went to Altice USA, AT&T Inc., Charter Communications, Comcast Cable, DISH Network, RCN Corporation, and Verizon. She wants the MVPDs to provide “appropriate refunds, discounts and reductions of charges and fees, payment deferrals, and waiver of termination fees, at least until live sports programming is resumed.”  

In one of the letters, James said it is "simply inappropriate for New Yorkers to be burdened by high costs for services that cable providers are not able to deliver, and programming that is a mere vestige of what has been expected. Reducing those burdens is not only legally and practically appropriate, it is clearly the right thing to do." 

She said she did want to hear the argument that cable contracts don't guarantee any particular service, so there is no guaranteed of live programming. "[T]hese contractual provisions did not envision the current situation," she said, which is that an entire category of key programming is now AWOL. 

For its part, Dish is looking to ESPN, the 800 pound gorilla pf live sports rights, for help, reportedly trying to refund customers with money it withholds from the sports programmer, given Dish has paid for a live sports net with very little live sports--outside of the odd HORSE game or remote eating contest. 

New York State Attorney General Letitia James has reportedly launched an inquiry to find out whether Charter Communications acted too slowly in allowing its employees, mainly call center workers and technicians, to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to several reports, a practice that could have led to more than 230 workers contracting the virus and two deaths.

According to a report in the New York Times, more than 230 Charter employees have tested positive for COVID-19, and at least two field workers have died from the virus. About 8,100 Charter workers have signed a month-old petition on change.org complaining about the company’s policies. 

Charter has come under fire for its practices during the pandemic, mainly its decision to keep call center workers and technicians in offices and on the job as other companies were gearing up for allowing employees to work from home. According to some reports, in the early days of the pandemic, Charter call center workers in Ohio were forced to work side by side in tight cubicles on floors with hundreds of employees.

Charter claimed at the time that many of its call center jobs could not be performed from home and that most of the complaints were early in the pandemic, when logistics were still being worked out. But the company later allowed most of its call center employees to work from home.

Charter has about 95,000 employees in 41 states. Of those workers, about 40,000 are in call centers and other offices, with about 55,000 in customer-facing jobs like technicians and retail sales.

Some Charter workers had complained about the company’s practices during the pandemic, including criticizing its offer of $25 restaurant gift certificates instead of hazard pay to tech workers on the front lines.

Charter declined to comment on the AG inquiry but said it has worked hard to keep employees safe during the pandemic and has pledged to increase the minimum wage for its workers from $15 per hour to $20 per hour over the next two years. An initial retroactive $1.50 increase will be implemented immediately for hourly front line employees in the field and customer operation groups and they will receive another permanent $1.50 per hour raise on top of their March 2021 merit increase.

In addition, Charter said it has given every employee an extra 15 days of COVID-19 related flex time and has committed to no layoffs or furloughs for at least 60 days. 

“Over the past three weeks and in accordance with CDC guidelines, we have dramatically reduced the number of employees going into the field or into the office while maintaining the efficacy of our business operations that is so critical to fighting this pandemic,” Charter said in a statement. “The significant majority of office workers and call center employees are remote."

“On our corporate campuses we have a very small percentage of employees who come into the office and those are critical roles that support the field operations,” Charter continued. “Many of those employees are on a rotating remote schedule that allow for minimal interaction, social distancing and we have escalated our cleanings in line with CDC guidelines.”

New York State, which took the lead in the state attorneys general suit trying to block the T-Mobile-Sprint merger, has decided not to appeal the court decision upholding the deal, saying it will instead work to make sure it is the best merger it can be. 

A U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York concluded the deal was in the public interest. 

Related: T-Mobile-Sprint Decision Draws Crowd 

That is according to New York attorney general Letitia James. 

"After a thorough analysis, New York has decided not to move forward with an appeal in this case. Instead, we hope to work with all the parties to ensure that consumers get the best pricing and service possible, that networks are built out throughout our state, and that good-paying jobs are created here in New York," she said in a statement. "We are gratified that this process has yielded commitments from T-Mobile to create jobs in Rochester and engage in robust national diversity initiatives that will connect our communities with good jobs and technology. We are committed to continuing to fight for affordability and access for all of New York’s mobile customers.” 

T-Mobile and Sprint have said the deal would be a net gain for jobs, boost the competition to AT&T and Verizon and speed the rollout of next-gen wireless.