The settlement relates to multiple complaints claiming to the company that accesses the user’s location and biometric data without consent.
This said it was “the most national recovery against Google for the Attorney General to enforce state privacy laws.” “No state has so far won a settlement with Google for similar data privacy violations of more than $93 million.”
The settlement was filed against Google in 2022 by Paxton in connection with Incognito search, which Paxton filed against Google, accusing him of violating Texans’ data privacy rights.
The company tracks personal locations even if users think they have disabled this feature, adding that Google used this information to promote the ads.
Related Stories
“Incognito” mode means that the web browser will operate in a private browsing mode that does not track the user’s location activity or search history.
That October, Paxton filed another complaint with Google. This time, the company claims it illegally acquired and used biometric data from millions of Texans without informed consent.
The collected biometric identifiers included facial geometry and audio print records. They say they were collected through services such as Google Assistant and Google Photos.
A $1.375 billion deal to resolve all these complaints comes after years of aggressive lawsuits, according to a May 9 statement.
In an emailed statement to the Epoch Times, a Google spokesperson said: “This resolves a lot of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere regarding product policies that we have been changing for a long time.
“The settlement does not require any changes to the new product. All necessary disclosures and policy changes have already been announced or put into practice.”
Attorney General Paxton welcomed the settlement, saying Big Technology “does not exceed the law” of Texas.
“For years, Google secretly tracked the movements of people, private searches, and even their products and services, and I fought back and won,” he said.
Google Village
In December 2023, the company agreed to pay $700 million to resolve complaints filed by several US people who claim the tech giant runs a play store monopoly.
Customers were overcharged as Google implemented illegal restrictions on the distribution of apps on Android devices and were accused of charging unnecessary fees for in-app purchases.
Of the $700 million, $630 million entered the Consumer Settlement Fund, and the remaining $70 million entered the state-controlled fund.
So far, Google has resolved multiple lawsuits in foreign countries.
In this case, Google has been accused of unpaid taxes and other fees between 2015 and 2019, and despite having digital infrastructure in the country, the company has properly declared and has not paid taxes from revenues arising in Italy.
