Texas’ attorney general announced on Friday that Google will pay $1.4 billion to settle claims of unauthorized data collection. Attorney General Ken Paxton stated that the settlement sends a clear message to tech companies that profiting from “selling away our rights and freedoms” will not be tolerated in Texas. The agreement resolves various claims made by the state against Google in 2022 regarding geolocation, incognito searches, and biometric data. Paxton alleged that Google had been unlawfully tracking and gathering users’ private information for years, including biometric identifiers like voiceprints and facial geometry. Google spokesperson José Castañeda mentioned that the settlement addresses older claims and that the company has already implemented changes to enhance privacy controls in its services. The settlement does not mandate any new product modifications. Paxton highlighted that this $1.4 billion agreement is the largest sum secured by a state in a settlement with Google for data-privacy violations of this nature. In the past two years, Texas had reached two other significant settlements with Google, while Meta also agreed to a $1.4 billion settlement in a privacy lawsuit involving the unauthorized use of biometric data.
