Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced a landmark $1.375 billion settlement with Google, resolving claims that the tech giant unlawfully collected and used Texans’ sensitive personal data.
The agreement marks the largest single-state privacy settlement in U.S. history and signals a broader trend of intensified enforcement against Big Tech data practices.
The case stems from a 2022 lawsuit filed by Paxton’s office, which accused Google of violating state privacy laws by covertly tracking users’ geolocation, logging private search activity in Incognito mode, and capturing biometric identifiers such as voiceprints and facial geometry. After nearly three years of litigation, Texas has secured a settlement that far exceeds any similar state-level action — surpassing the next-largest state settlement against Google, $93 million, by more than 14 times. It also eclipses a 40-state coalition settlement in 2022, which collectively netted $391 million.
According to the Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG), Google’s data practices involved using products and services — such as Android devices, Google Search, and Google Assistant — to continuously collect user data without proper disclosure or consent. This included location tracking even when users had disabled location history and the harvesting of biometric data through features like voice recognition and facial identification.
Google LLC, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., operates the world’s largest search engine and online advertising network. The company has faced mounting scrutiny over its handling of user data, particularly as it expands into health, smart home, and mobile ecosystems. As part of the settlement, Google does not admit wrongdoing, but the financial penalty sets a new high watermark for state privacy enforcement.
This latest settlement comes amid a wave of aggressive data privacy enforcement led by Paxton, who has already filed actions against other major companies such as Allstate and General Motors over similar allegations. In July 2024, he reached a $1.4 billion settlement with Meta over facial recognition data abuse — another historic first for a single-state lawsuit. Previous cases have targeted Google as well, with a $700 million antitrust settlement and an $8 million resolution for deceptive trade practices.
The $1.375 billion from Google is expected to fund future enforcement, consumer restitution, and initiatives to bolster data privacy in Texas, declared Paxton’s office.
The case is a good reminder for users to review their privacy settings across their Google accounts, consider using privacy-enhanced web browsers and extensions, disable biometric features, and treat ‘Incognito Modes’ with caution and realism.
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