Google just handed over nearly $1.375 billion to Texas. Not as a donation — but to shut down two big lawsuits claiming the company dipped too far into people’s private lives.
The whole mess started back in 2022. Texas officials said Google kept tabs on folks in ways they never signed up for. We’re talking location data, quiet audio captures, facial patterns — and all this wrapped inside things like Maps, Chrome, and Photos. The kind of stuff users thought was private? It wasn’t.
This settlement stands taller than anything other states squeezed out of Google over privacy. And oddly enough, it comes just months after Texas pulled the same kind of billion-dollar move on Meta over biometric data.
Google says it didn’t do anything wrong. No rules broken, no admissions. And no changes to how their products work either — at least not because of this case. According to them, anything worth tweaking got updated long ago.
Still, Texas officials called it a win. For them, it’s not just money — it’s a warning shot to other tech giants. If you’re going to mess with user privacy, you better be ready to pay up.
Image: DIW-Aigen
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• Sam Altman Says Children Should Not Form Emotional Bonds with Artificial Intelligence
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The whole mess started back in 2022. Texas officials said Google kept tabs on folks in ways they never signed up for. We’re talking location data, quiet audio captures, facial patterns — and all this wrapped inside things like Maps, Chrome, and Photos. The kind of stuff users thought was private? It wasn’t.
This settlement stands taller than anything other states squeezed out of Google over privacy. And oddly enough, it comes just months after Texas pulled the same kind of billion-dollar move on Meta over biometric data.
Google says it didn’t do anything wrong. No rules broken, no admissions. And no changes to how their products work either — at least not because of this case. According to them, anything worth tweaking got updated long ago.
Still, Texas officials called it a win. For them, it’s not just money — it’s a warning shot to other tech giants. If you’re going to mess with user privacy, you better be ready to pay up.
Read next:
• Sam Altman Says Children Should Not Form Emotional Bonds with Artificial Intelligence
• How to Detect Misinformation During India-Pakistan Tension Without Falling for Manipulated or Misleading Sources
