Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at A Google spokesperson said: “Consistent with improvements we’ve made in recent years, we have settled this investigation, which was based on outdated product policies that we changed years ago.”In a blog post, the company also laid out a number of recent changes it said had given users more control over the location data. Other changes due soon included a simplified privacy “hub” and easier tools to delete location data, it said.
According to privacy experts, however, few users look at the information Google and other internet companies offer about their personal data, or take advantage of tools to limit the amount of information that is collected about them, making their effect limited. By contrast, Apple made a sweeping impact on the online advertising industry with a privacy change last year, sending prompts to users that made it easy to block the collection of personal data by mobile apps.
