Google to pay Texas nearly $1.4 billion over alleged data privacy violations
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https://therecord.media/google-texas-privacy-violations-billions
Another lawsuit settlement has struck Google. This time, the company is now liable for one of the largest payouts from a state-level consumer data protection legislation in the United States.
Google has agreed to pay Texas more than $1.37 billion to resolve two lawsuits involving its use of location data, biometrics and its Incognito search engine.
The payout far outstrips any other state settlements against the tech giant to date on claims involving data privacy.
Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Google in 2022, alleging the company illegally tracked and collected users’ private data, including their location, their voiceprints and faces and their searches in Incognito mode. The latter has been the subject of other lawsuits claiming the special search engine does not deliver the privacy it promises.
“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law,” Paxton said in a statement, which accused Google of “secretly” tracking Texans’ data.
“This $1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust.”
A Google spokesperson noted that the settlement reached on Friday does not mandate new product changes and said the company has already made policy fixes which address the issues at the heart of the lawsuit.
The settlement also includes no admission of wrongdoing by Google, the spokesperson said.
Does this fix anything? Not really. Since Google has already changed much of its privacy policies since the original 2022 lawsuit, this settlement seems reactive at best.
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https://therecord.media/google-texas-privacy-violations-billions
Another lawsuit settlement has struck Google. This time, the company is now liable for one of the largest payouts from a state-level consumer data protection legislation in the United States.
Google has agreed to pay Texas more than $1.37 billion to resolve two lawsuits involving its use of location data, biometrics and its Incognito search engine.
The payout far outstrips any other state settlements against the tech giant to date on claims involving data privacy.
Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Google in 2022, alleging the company illegally tracked and collected users’ private data, including their location, their voiceprints and faces and their searches in Incognito mode. The latter has been the subject of other lawsuits claiming the special search engine does not deliver the privacy it promises.
“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law,” Paxton said in a statement, which accused Google of “secretly” tracking Texans’ data.
“This $1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust.”
A Google spokesperson noted that the settlement reached on Friday does not mandate new product changes and said the company has already made policy fixes which address the issues at the heart of the lawsuit.
The settlement also includes no admission of wrongdoing by Google, the spokesperson said.
Does this fix anything? Not really. Since Google has already changed much of its privacy policies since the original 2022 lawsuit, this settlement seems reactive at best.
Apart from this case, can governments etc. sue Google for, say, 1 trillion dollars? Is that legally possible?
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Apart from this case, can governments etc. sue Google for, say, 1 trillion dollars? Is that legally possible?
Sure, they can do whatever they want:
https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/russia-fines-google-2-5-decillion-over-youtube-bans/21954/1
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Apart from this case, can governments etc. sue Google for, say, 1 trillion dollars? Is that legally possible?
There is usually a separate trial/hearing to decide the amount of damages that the defendant must pay.
Also, most of these cases usually result in a settlement for considerably lesser than the original amount requested by the government.
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