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Attorney General Ken Paxton described the settlement as sending
a message to tech companies that he will not allow them to make
money off of “selling away our rights and freedoms.”
“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law." Paxton said in a
statement. “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.”
The agreement settles several claims Texas made against the
search giant in 2022 related to geolocation, incognito searches
and biometric data. The state argued Google was “unlawfully
tracking and collecting users’ private data.”
Paxton claimed, for example, that Google collected millions of
biometric identifiers, including voiceprints and records of face
geometry, through such products and services as Google Photos
and Google Assistant.
Google spokesperson José Castañeda said the agreement settles an
array of “old claims,” some of which relate to product policies
the company has already changed.
“We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to
build robust privacy controls into our services,” he said in a
statement.
The company also clarified that the settlement does not require
any new product changes.
Paxton said the $1.4 billion is the largest amount won by any
state in a settlement with Google over this type of data-privacy
violations.
Texas previously reached two other key settlements with Google
within the last two years, including one in December 2023 in
which the company agreed to pay $700 million and make several
other concessions to settle allegations that it had been
stifling competition against its Android app store.
Meta has also agreed to a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas in
a privacy lawsuit over allegations that the tech giant used
users' biometric data without their permission.
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