Markey, Blumenthal Seek FTC Probe of Google ‘Covert’ Location Tracking

The FTC should investigate Google’s potentially “deceptive” collection of Android users’ sensitive location data, Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Monday. The lawmakers cited an investigation by Quartz, alleging Google gathers Android user location data when location services are disabled. Google’s privacy settings allow “an intimate understanding of personal lives as they watch their users seek the support of reproductive health services, engage in civic activities, or attend places of religious worship,” the lawmakers wrote to CEO Sundar Pichai. Google and the FTC didn’t comment.