A Google company logo is suspended above the entrance to the company’s office at the St. John’s Terminal to New York on March 11, 2025.
Gary Hershorn | Corbis News | Getty images
Google agreed to pay nearly $ 1.4 billion in the state of Texas to settle allegations for violation of privacy rights of state residents, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said on Friday.
Paxton continued Google in 2022 for the monitoring and collection of private user data.
The Attorney General said that the regulations, which covers allegations in two separate proceedings against the search engine and the applications giant, has overshadowed all the colonies passed by other states with Google for similar violations of data confidentiality.
Google’s regulation occurs almost 10 months after Paxton obtained a dollars’ $ 1.4 billion for Texas MetaThe Facebook and Instagram parent company, to resolve unauthorized complaints of use of biometric data by users of these popular social media platforms.
“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law,” Paxton said in a statement on Friday.
“For years, Google has secretly followed people’s movements, private research and even their vocal footprints and their facial geometry through their products and services. I retaliated and won,” said Paxton.
“This $ 1.375 billion regulation is a major victory for Texans’ privacy and said to the companies they will pay to abuse our confidence.”
Google’s spokesperson Jose Castaneda said that the company had not admitted any act or responsibility in the regulations, which involves allegations linked to the Chrome browser incognito parameter, disclosure linked to the location history of the Google Maps application and biometric demands related to Google Photo.
Castaneda said that Google did not have to make changes to the products in relation to the regulations and that all the modifications of the policy made by the company in relation to the allegations have been announced or implemented.
“This is solving a series of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning the product policies that we have long changed,” said Castaneda.
“We are happy to put them behind us, and we will continue to integrate robust confidentiality checks into our services.”
