Google has agreed to pay the state of Texas $1.375 billion to resolve two lawsuits alleging the company tracked users’ personal location, incognito searches, and voice and facial data without consent.
These lawsuits were initiated by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2022. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, agreed to pay a similar sum to settle a facial recognition-related lawsuit brought by Paxton the previous year.
“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law,” Paxton stated. “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.”
Paxton’s office highlighted that this is the “highest recovery nationwide against Google for any attorney general’s enforcement of state privacy laws.”
A Google spokesperson stated that the company is settling the lawsuits without admitting wrongdoing or liability and without needing to alter any of its products.
“This resolves a collection of old claims, many of which have been settled elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed,” said spokesperson José Castañeda. “We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services.”
Google achieved some earlier victories in these legal disputes, including a ruling by an appeals court that the company lacks sufficient ties to Texas to face a lawsuit there. Initially, Google responded by saying Paxton mischaracterized its products, noting that Google Photos only scanned users’ faces to group similar photos together, not for advertising purposes.
The settlement follows significant antitrust rulings that found Google acted illegally to maintain monopolies in web search and advertising tech, with proposed remedies including the divestment of Chrome. Google has indicated it will appeal both rulings.
Meanwhile, Paxton recently announced his intention to challenge U.S. Senator John Cornyn in the upcoming mid-term elections.
