Whatever the other of including insult to damage is, Attorney General Maura Healey’s going by way of it, because the lately minted governor-elect all of the sudden may have a $9.3-million piggy financial institution for which she has the “sole discretion” to dole out in her waning days because the state’s high law-enforcement official.
Healey’s workplace, one in all a coalition of 40 attorneys common concerned within the investigation of Google, trumpeted the “largest multistate data privacy settlement” in U.S. historical past, with the tech big agreeing to pay $391.5 million in complete, of which exactly $9,334,014.62 will go to the Bay State.
A spokeswoman for Healey, whose workplace might be receiving this money in her remaining month as AG, mentioned it’ll go into the final fund and likewise be used for consumer-protection applications. The specifics are nonetheless within the works.
This settlement comes after Google “violated state consumer protection laws by misleading consumers about its location tracking practices since at least 2014,” per the workplace of Healey, the two-term Democratic AG who final week cruised to election for governor.
“Specifically, Google caused users to be confused about two account settings that control data collection of the users’ location – ‘Location History’ and ‘Web & App Activity’ – and the extent to which consumers who use Google products and services could limit Google’s location tracking by adjusting their account and device settings,” in response to the press launch.
Google, per the settlement, has to fork over the enormous sum to the attorneys common 30 days from Monday. And that framing is vital: This cash, per the settlement, goes proper to the workplaces of the attorneys common.
Buried deep within the bowels of the settlement filed Monday — web page 24 of 32, bullet level 64 of 86 — are the directions for a way Healey can spend the cash, they usually’re considerably broad: “At her sole discretion, the Massachusetts Attorney General may use or distribute the payment to Massachusetts in any amount, allocation or apportionment and for any purpose permitted by law …”
The settlement then goes onto describe a number of solutions of locations for this dough, together with simply dumping it into the final fund of the state she’ll quickly lead, placing it into the Local Consumer Aid Fund or “for programs or initiatives designed to improve or strengthen personal information privacy or security.” But these are simply all choices for the cash that the probabilities might be “including but not limited to.”
Andrea Campbell, a former Boston metropolis councilor and mayoral candidate who Healey allied herself with on the marketing campaign path this yr, will succeed her as AG.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”