Google has reached a $1.375 billion settlement in principle with the state of Texas to resolve allegations that the tech company violated user privacy rights.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the agreement on Friday, settling two lawsuits filed in 2022 related to Google’s data collection practices. The company did not admit wrongdoing and stated that the settlement doesn’t require any product changes.
Newsweek has reached out to Google via email on Saturday for comment.
Why It Matters
This historic settlement represents the largest privacy-related payout from Google to a single state, dwarfing previous settlements on similar issues. It significantly exceeds the $93 million maximum that other individual states have secured for similar violations and is nearly $1 billion more than the $391 million settlement a 40-state coalition obtained in 2022.
The case addresses Google’s practices regarding location tracking, incognito browsing, and biometric data collection.
What To Know
The Texas lawsuits alleged three primary privacy violations:
- Tracking users’ locations even when they believed the feature was disabled
- Misleading users about the privacy of Incognito mode browsing
- Collecting facial geometry records and voiceprints from Texas residents without proper consent
This settlement is part of Texas’ broader initiative on technology regulation. Paxton has established what his office describes as the largest state-level data privacy and security program in the country.
Texas previously secured a $1.4 billion settlement from Meta, formerly Facebook, regarding facial recognition practices and obtained $700 million and $8 million from Google in separate cases involving anticompetitive and deceptive trade practices.
For Alphabet, Google’s parent company, this adds to mounting legal challenges. Last month, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia ruled in favor of the Department of Justice (DOJ), finding Google liable for maintaining monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for over a decade through contracts and technological integration.
This ruling follows another significant U.S. antitrust loss in August 2024, when a different federal judge determined Google had engaged in anticompetitive behavior to establish and maintain a monopoly in the online search market.
What People Are Saying
Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton wrote in a statement: “In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law. 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.”
Google spokesperson José Castañeda wrote in a statement, per Reuters: “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.”
What Happens Next?
The Texas attorney general’s office has not disclosed how the settlement funds will be used, and detailed terms of the agreement have not been made public.
As a “settlement in principle,” final details will need to be formalized before the agreement is fully implemented.
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