(The Center Square) – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has won a $1.375 billion settlement in principle with Google, the highest recovery received against Google by any state. It’s also the latest of several major wins against big tech in lawsuits filed by Texas.
“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law. 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 said. “This $1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust.”
The settlement was reached three years after Paxton sued Google multiple times alleging the search engine giant violated Texas privacy laws and was unlawfully tracking and collecting users’ private data even after a 2018 multi-state settlement. In 2018, Google agreed to a $391.5 million settlement with 40 sates whose attorneys general argued it was tracking users’ locations without their permission or knowledge.
Three years later, Android and iPhone users’ location data was still being tracked by Google even if their privacy settings were on.
Paxton sued Google in January 2022 alleging it systematically misled and deceived Texas consumers in violation of Texas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Act by continuing to track their personal location even when they disabled the location feature on their phone. “Google then uses the deceptively gathered data to push advertisements to the consumer, earning the Big Tech company enormous profits,” Paxton argued.
Despite its claims, Google continued to track users’ location through other settings and methods it didn’t disclose, Paxton argued.
In May 2022, Paxton sued Google again, amended the January complaint alleging Google’s Incognito mode, or “private browsing,” which “implies to consumers that Google will not track your search history or location activity” was in fact doing that.
This was Paxton’s fifth lawsuit against Google, he argued at the time. By October 2022, Paxton sued Google again, this time for unlawfully capturing and using biometric data of millions of Texans without receiving their informed consent to do so.
This lawsuit alleged that Google “collected millions of biometric identifiers, including voiceprints and records of face geometry, from Texans through its products and services like Google Photos, Google Assistant, and Nest Hub Max,” and exploited Texans’ personal information “for its own commercial interests … a knowing violation of the state’s Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act,” Paxton said.
The settlement announcement also comes after Paxton last July secured a $1.4 billion settlement with Facebook parent Meta for unlawfully collecting and using facial recognition data. At issue was Facebook Tag Suggestions, which allowed users to “tag” images of people in a photo. Since 2011, Meta automatically turned on the feature for all Texas Facebook users without their expressed consent. For more than a decade, it “ran facial recognition software on virtually every face contained in the photographs uploaded to Facebook, capturing records of the facial geometry of the people depicted,” knowing Texas law prohibited it from doing so without providing informed consent, Paxton alleged.
In 2022, Texas sued Meta alleging it violated Texas’ Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act and Texas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Texas’ 2024 victory against Meta was the largest settlement ever obtained by any state and the largest privacy settlement Paxton ever won.
The settlement demonstrated Texas’ “commitment to standing up to the world’s biggest technology companies and holding them accountable for breaking the law and violating Texans’ privacy rights. Any abuse of Texans’ sensitive data will be met with the full force of the law,” Paxton said.
Despite Texas’ historic win, lawsuits continued against big tech.
In 2023, Paxton announced an $8 million settlement with Google in a lawsuit filed over deceptive advertising promoting a Google Pixel 4 smartphone.
Seven months later, Texas secured another settlement with Google, this time for $700 million, over anticompetitive practices. Texas joined a multi-state class action against Google in 2021, arguing it unlawfully monopolized the Android app market by signing anticompetitive contracts to prevent other app stores from preloading on Android devices, paying app developers not to launch products on rival app stores, and creating other technological barriers. In this lawsuit, Google was ordered to paid $630 million in restitution to consumers who purchased apps on Google Play Store over a five-year period.
