Google to Pay $1.4 Billion to Texas, Settle Data Privacy Case

The settlement is related to multiple complaints alleging the company accessed users’ location and biometric data without consent.

People walk next to a Google logo during a trade fair in Hannover Messe, in Hanover, Germany, on April 22, 2024. Annegret Hilse/Reuters

Google has agreed to settle multiple data privacy lawsuits brought by Texas Attorney General (AG) Ken Paxton by paying $1.375 billion, the AG’s office said in a May 9 statement.

This is the “highest recovery nationwide against Google for any attorney general’s enforcement of state privacy laws,” said the statement. “To date, no state has attained a settlement against Google for similar data-privacy violations greater than $93 million.”

The settlement was made for multiple lawsuits related to geolocation, biometric data, and incognito searches brought by Paxton against Google in 2022 that accused the company of violating Texans’ data privacy rights.

A lawsuit filed in January 2022 alleged that Google was “deceptively tracking” the location of users without securing their consent, said a Jan. 24, 2022, statement from Paxton’s office.

The company tracked the personal location even when users thought they had disabled this feature, it alleged, adding that Google used this information to promote ads.

In May 2022, Paxton amended the lawsuit to add Google’s “Incognito mode” as another deceptive trade practice employed by the company, said a May 19, 2022, statement from the office.

The “Incognito” mode implies that the web browser operates in a private browsing mode where Google will not track a user’s location activity or their search history.

In October that year, Paxton filed another complaint against Google, this time alleging the company unlawfully captured and used biometric data of millions of Texas citizens without informed consent.

Collected biometric identifiers included records of facial geometry and voiceprints. These were collected through services such as Google Assistant and Google Photos, it said.

The $1.375 billion deal to settle all these complaints comes after years of aggressive litigation, according to the May 9 statement.

In an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, a Google spokesperson said: “This settles a raft of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed. We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services.

“The settlement does not require any new product changes, and all of the required disclosures and policy changes have already been announced or put into practice.”

Attorney General Paxton welcomed the settlement, saying that Big Tech is “not above the law” in Texas.

“For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry through their products and services. I fought back and won,” he said.

“This $1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust. I will always protect Texans by stopping Big Tech’s attempts to make a profit by selling away our rights and freedoms.”

Google Settlements

In December 2023, the company agreed to pay $700 million to settle a complaint filed by several U.S. states, which alleged that the tech giant was running a monopoly on its Play Store.

Google was accused of implementing unlawful restrictions regarding the distribution of apps on Android devices and charging unnecessary fees for in-app purchases, which led to customers being overcharged.

Out of the $700 million, $630 million went into the settlement fund for consumers, with the remaining $70 million going into a fund managed by the states.

So far this year, Google has settled multiple cases with foreign nations.

In February, prosecutors from Italy announced dropping a tax case against the European division of Google after the company agreed it would pay 326 million euros ($340 million).

In this case, Google was accused of unpaid taxes and other dues between 2015 and 2019, with the company allegedly not properly declaring and paying taxes from revenues generated in Italy despite having digital infrastructure in the nation.

Last month, the Competition Commission of India, the country’s competition regulator, approved a settlement proposal with Google related to charges that the company engaged in anticompetitive practices regarding the Android TV platform.