Apple, Amazon, Meta (formerly known as Facebook), and Google are under constant investigation for the monopoly tactics and scrutiny over their business practices. Recently, a new lawsuit was filed against Google on Monday, claiming the company used deceptive location tracking practices that invade users’ privacy.

The new lawsuits are filed in the District of Columbia, Texas, Washington, and Indiana, and they allege that Google made misleading promises to its users about how the company protected their privacy through the Google account settings. The lawsuit wants to put an end to Google using such practices and fine the company.

The lawsuit alleges that Google used “dark patterns” and other tactics and methods to influence its users’ decisions in ways that could benefit the advertising business, and likely, learn more about the user themselves. The lawsuit also alleges that Google designed its products to nudge and pressure its users into giving up location data “inadvertently or out of frustration.” The suits claim this violates various state and D.C consumer protection laws, says the The Washington Post report (via GSMArena).

José Castañeda, a Google Spokesperson, offered a statement to The Washington Post:

“The Attorneys General are bringing a case based on inaccurate claims and outdated assertions about our settings, [...] We have always built privacy features into our products and provided robust controls for location data. We will vigorously defend ourselves and set the record straight.”

It’s worth mentioning that this isn’t the first time Google got in trouble with using location data, and even we reported that Google buried the location settings so deep, that users actually had to look for it to find it on Android. Google was also found to be using location data, even when the location toggle was turned off. It’s not surprising to see a new lawsuit appear, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out in the future.