Google agrees to pay state of Texas $US1.3b for | Australian Markets

Tech giant Google is combating battles on a number of fronts and has been compelled to settle a monstrous knowledge breach privateness lawsuit with the state of Texas, to the tune of almost $US1.4 billion.

The ‘lone star state’s’ law officers took motion towards Google on behalf of their residents for privateness breaches within their search engine and apps and have in the end gained a defining victory over the silicon valley colossus.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has acknowledged on Friday that the state of Texas sued Google in 2022 for allegedly unlawfully monitoring and amassing the non-public knowledge of customers.

The lawyer normal defined the settlement, which covers allegations in two separate lawsuits towards the search engine and app giant, dwarfed all previous settlements by different states with Google for comparable knowledge privateness violations.

Paxton is a famend advocate for online privateness and fewer than a 12 months in the past fought and gained a $US1.4 billion settlement for Texas from Meta, the guardian company of Facebook and Instagram, to resolve claims of unauthorised use of biometric knowledge by customers of these common social media platforms.

“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law,” Paxton mentioned.

“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,” mentioned Paxton.

“This $US1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust.”

Google spokesman Jose Castaneda mentioned the company didn’t admit any wrongdoing or legal responsibility within the settlement, which entails allegations associated to the Chrome browser’s incognito setting, disclosures associated to location historical past on the Google Maps app, and biometric claims associated to Google Photo.

“This settles a raft of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed,” Castaneda mentioned.

“We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services.”

Meanwhile, Mexico has launched legal proceedings and is suing Google over its labelling of the Gulf of Mexico because the Gulf of America, a change made by US President Donald Trump by way of govt order.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has not supplied particulars of the lawsuit, however mentioned that Google had been sued.

Mexico’s Foreign Relations ministry had beforehand despatched letters to Google asking it not to label Mexican territorial waters because the Gulf of America, the physique of water has shared borders between the United States and Mexico.

Trump’s order solely carries authority within the US and Mexico, in addition to different international locations and worldwide our bodies, should not have to recognise the identify change.

Mexico argues that Gulf of America ought to solely apply to the half of the gulf over the United States continental shelf.

With AAP.