Cybersecurity Policy Report, Texas, Google Agree to Settle Lawsuit Alleging Privacy Violations, (May 12, 2025)
By Tony Foley
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R.) announced on Friday that his office had secured a $1.375 billion settlement in principle with Google LLC to resolve a lawsuit originally filed in 2022 alleging various violations of the state’s privacy and consumer protection laws.
The original suit accused Google of unlawfully tracking and collecting users’ private data regarding geolocation, data from users of Google Chrome’s “incognito” mode, and biometrics, according to a news release. Specifically, the suit made the following allegations:
With respect to geolocation, the AG maintained that Google continued to track the personal location of users even when users thought they had disabled the tracking feature;
With respect to incognito searches, the AG argued that Google misled consumers through its misrepresentations that users could avoid having their Internet search and activity history recorded while in incognito mode; and
With respect to biometric data, the AG alleged that Google captured millions of biometric identifiers, including voiceprints and records of face geometry, from Texas through Google Photos, Google Assistant, and Nest Hub Max without properly obtaining informed consent.
The news release asserts that the settlement far surpasses any other state’s claims for similar violations, noting that a multistate settlement reached by 40 AGs in 2022 (CPR, Nov. 14, 2022) secured $391 million, almost a billion dollars less than Texas’ recovery.
“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,” said AG Paxton. “This $1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust.”
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