Kathmandu. Texas will have to pay $1.4 billion ($189.5 billion) in damages to resolve a dispute over google collecting and storing users’ personal data without permission.
Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton made the announcement on Friday. He expressed confidence that the agreement would send a message that information technology service providers are not allowed to make money by “selling users’ rights and freedoms”.
“In Texas, there are no information technology companies above the law. Paxton said in a statement, “Over the years, Google secretly monitored people’s movements, private searches, and even their voiceprint and facial geometry through its products and services.” I retaliated against it and won. “
The deal settles several claims by Texas in 2022 against Google related to geolocation, incognito search and biometric data. The state has argued that Google was “illegally monitoring and collecting users’ private data.” “
For example, Paxton claimed that Google collected millions of biometric identifiers, voiceprints, and facial geometry records through products and services such as Google Photos and Google Assistant.
Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said the deal would settle a series of “outdated claims”, some of which relate to product policies that the company has already changed.
“We are happy to put them behind us, and we will continue to build strong privacy controls on our services,” he said in a statement. The company has also clarified that the contract does not require any new product changes.
This type of data is the largest amount won by any state in a deal with Google on privacy violations.
