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- Google will pay its biggest ever state settlement over data privacy issues
- The company had been tracking users’ geolocation without consent
- It was also collecting biometrics and incognito searches
Google has agreed to pay $1.375 billion to the state of Texas to settle lawsuits over unauthorized tracking and data collection.
It was deemed that the company had been unlawfully tracking users’ geolocation, including while ‘Location History’ was disabled.
Google had also been collecting biometric data, such as facial geometry and voiceprints, without consent, as well as tracking incognito searches and other private user activity.
Google to pay out $1.4 billion for unauthorized data collection
The colossal sum might not be much to a company that generated $350 billion in revenue in the most recent fiscal year, but it’s still a sum that could hit the company hard, marking the largest ever state settlement that Google has had to pay out of data privacy issues.
In September 2023, Google paid out its then-largest-ever state settlement of $93 million over allegations of misleading users about how their location data was collected. Earlier in November 2022, the company settled a similar data collection complaint in a payout worth $391 million, but that was to 40 states – not one.
“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 Attorney General Ken Paxton, who declared that “Big Tech is not above the law.”
Google’s 10-figure settlement follows a similar payout from Meta in July 2024, when it coughed up $1.4 billion over unlawfully collecting and using facial recognition data.
Paxton added: “This $1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust.”
A Google spokesperson told TechRadar Pro: “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.”