May 10 (UPI) —
Google has agreed to pay $1.375 billion to resolve a 2022 data privacy lawsuit, according to an announcement made by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday.
The legal case filed in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas
accused
Allegations against Google for illegally monitoring and gathering users’ sensitive information related to their location, secret browsing sessions, and biological identifiers.
“Paxton stated that ‘in Texas, large technology companies are also subject to legal regulations,’ ” he added.
news release
. “This $1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust.”
Paxton said the lawsuit is part multistate effort to hold Google accountable for data privacy violations.
For many years, Google discreetly monitored individuals’ locations, confidential search activities, as well as their voice patterns and facial structures via their various offerings and platforms,” Paxton stated. “I took action against this and emerged victorious.
He stated that Google committed to paying Texas significantly larger sums compared to what it paid when settling comparable legal actions initiated by other states.
No other state was awarded more than $93 million from Google as part of the data privacy violation settlements. A group of 40 states shared a total payout of $391 million, which is almost $1 billion less compared to what Texas received in their settlement.
Paxton didn’t specify how the settlement would be utilized or whether Texans would get a share of it.
Texas similarly secured a $1.4 billion settlement from Facebook-owner Meta for data privacy violations after Paxton sued the tech firm for collecting and using Texans’ facial recognition data.
Alphabet, the parent company, saw its stock price drop somewhat on Friday after announcing a $1.375 billion settlement.
The share price initially rose to a high of $156.14 shortly after trading opened Friday morning by tumbled to a low of $153.95 during afternoon trading, according to
NASDAQ
.
The share price recovered slightly during after-hours trading with a final price of $154.17.
The share price continued declining on Saturday with a low of $152.27 and remained generally level into the afternoon hours.
Google did not reply to a request for comment sent on Saturday evening.
