Google has finalized a $1.375 billion settlement with the state of Texas to resolve multiple lawsuits alleging that the tech giant violated residents’ privacy rights through unlawful tracking, data collection, and deceptive practices, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced.

The deal, detailed in an Oct. 31 statement, is one of the largest single-state privacy settlements in U.S. history and caps a years-long legal battle over Google’s handling of user data, including location tracking, biometric identifiers, and its so-called Incognito browsing mode.

“This historic $1.375 billion price tag for Google’s misconduct sends a clear warning to all of Big Tech that I will take aggressive action against any company that misuses Texans’ data and violates their privacy,” Paxton said in the statement.

Paxton’s office said the settlement concludes two of the largest data-privacy enforcement actions ever brought by a single state against Google. It derives from lawsuits filed by the attorney general’s office that accused the company of unlawfully tracking users’ movements, collecting biometric information without consent, and misleading consumers about the privacy of Incognito browsing sessions.

Years of Litigation

Paxton first sued Google in January 2022, alleging that the company “deceptively” tracked users’ locations even when they believed they had disabled location-tracking features. The lawsuit claimed that Google used that information to target advertisements and monetize user behavior without consent.

In May 2022, the attorney general expanded the complaint to include Google’s Incognito mode, which he said gave users a false sense of privacy while the company continued gathering data on browsing activity.

A separate lawsuit filed in October 2022 accused Google of illegally collecting Texans’ facial geometry and voiceprints through services such as Google Photos and Google Assistant.

The newly finalized agreement combines those actions into a sweeping settlement that, according to Paxton’s office, “far eclipses” any previous single-state deal with Google over privacy violations.

The next-largest settlement of its kind totaled $93 million in California, and a 40-state coalition secured $391 million in a joint case in November 2022—nearly $1 billion less than Texas obtained alone.

Google said in an earlier statement to The Epoch Times that the settlement resolves a set of “old claims” involving product policies that have already been changed.

“This settles a raft of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed,” a Google spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

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

Paxton has positioned himself as one of Big Tech’s staunchest state-level adversaries. The Google settlement comes months after the Texas AG reached a $1.4 billion deal with Meta Platforms Inc., formerly Facebook, over alleged illegal biometric data collection and separate agreements totaling more than $700 million with Google over anticompetitive and deceptive trade practices.

Naveen Athrappully contributed to this report.