Month: November 2022

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Google has settled a privacy lawsuit with a coalition of 40 state attorneys general today. Google agreed to pay $391.5 million for misleading Location History settings the company was running from 2014-2020.

Google's Location History settings have gotten it in trouble with several regulatory bodies. The action began after a 2018 Associated Press article pointed out that the "Location History" check box didn't control all Google location history across your entire account and that many location tracking features lived under a second check box called "Web & App Activity." Consumers might turn off the "Location History" check box thinking it stopped all Google location tracking, but it was actually only for a single Google Maps feature. Google lost a case in Australia over this setting in 2021 and recently settled a separate lawsuit with Arizona for $85 million. A few other states still have pending lawsuits.

Google redesigned its privacy settings several times since the AP article, and in a blog post on the settlement, Google said the ruling was "based on outdated product policies that we changed years ago."  As part of the settlement, Google promises to make more privacy settings changes in "the coming months," saying the changes include:

Enlarge / The "Sword of Damocles" head-mounted display, the original augmented reality headset, circa 1968. (credit: Ivan Sutherland)

Apple is wrapping up development of its long-rumored, long-delayed mixed reality headset, and is gearing up for a launch as soon as early next year, according to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman's weekly newsletter.

Recent job listings posted by Apple suggest that the company is looking to fill content creation roles for the device, suggesting that the core technology is set enough that developers, producers, artists, and the like work confidently with it. That's in contrast to the product's state not that long ago, when differing opinions about the product's feature set, specs, and design led to shifting goalposts that would have been a headache for content creators.

Among those content creation roles is at least one that would focus on "the development of a 3D mixed-reality world," not dissimilar in some respects to Meta's Horizon Worlds. But while Horizon Worlds' spaces exist entirely in VR, an Apple job listing describes "connected experiences in a 3D mixed-reality world," suggesting that augmented reality may also play a part.

Enlarge (credit: PETER PARKS / Contributor | AFP)

Elon Musk has seemingly decided that one way to inspire confidence in Twitter as an advertising platform is to become an advertiser himself. Yesterday, CNBC reported that SpaceX purchased one of Twitter’s premium advertising packages—when typically SpaceX rarely invests in Twitter advertising—as Musk's other company plans to begin advertising Starlink satellite Internet to customers in Spain and Australia. According to internal documents CNBC reviewed, SpaceX has so far spent $160,000 on the Twitter ad campaign and in total could end up investing up to $250,000.

According to Musk, SpaceX buying this advertising package is nothing special. The CEO of both SpaceX and Twitter took issue with CNBC describing the advertising investment as “large.”

“SpaceX Starlink bought a tiny—not large—ad package to test effectiveness of Twitter advertising in Australia & Spain,” Musk tweeted. “Did same for FB/Insta/Google.”