Google has officially agreed to pay $1.375 billion to the state of Texas for settle two lawsuits accusing the company of tracking users’ personal information.
The lawsuits were brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paston in 2022, accusing Google of tracking users’ location, incognito searches, and voice and facial data without their permission.
Google faces lawsuits
“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law,” Paxton said.
“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 added.
A Google spokesperson stated that the company is settling the lawsuits without any admission of wrongdoing or liability, and without having to change any of its products.
“This settles a raft of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed,” said spokesperson José Castañeda in a statement.
“We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services,” Castañeda added.
The company had initially responded by saying Paxton mischaracterised its products “in another breathless lawsuit.”
The settlement comes after major antitrust rulings finding that Google acted illegally to maintain monopolies in web search and advertising tech, with proposed remedies including the divestment of Chrome.
