Google agrees to pay Texas $1.4 billion data privacy settlement-OxBig News Network

Google agreed to pay nearly $1.4 billion to the state of Texas to settle allegations of violating data privacy rights of the state’s residents, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday.

Paxton sued Google in 2022 for allegedly unlawfully tracking and collecting the private data of users. The attorney general said the settlement dwarfed all past settlements by other states with Google for similar data privacy violations.

Google’s settlement comes nearly 10 months after the attorney obtained a $1.4 billion settlement for Texas from Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to resolve claims of unauthorized use of biometric data by users of those popular social media platforms.

“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law,” Paxton said in a statement on Friday.

“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,” said Paxton. “This $1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust.”

A spokesperson for Google said, “This settles a raft of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed.”

“We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services,” the spokesperson said.

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