Google has agreed to cut a hefty check — up to $190 million — to Texas’ hired legal teams as part of a sprawling $1.375 billion privacy settlement that closed one of the state’s biggest battles with Big Tech.
The deal, revealed in new court filings, also sets aside $71 million for the Texas Attorney General’s office itself. Both Google and the state’s lead law firm, Norton Rose Fulbright, have asked a Midland court to finalize the settlement, which wraps up a case that once accused the tech giant of turning Texans into unwitting test subjects in its data experiments.
Google’s statement called the resolution a move to “settle old claims” about policies it said had already been reformed years ago. The company didn’t admit any wrongdoing — but the price tag tells a different story about how costly “no comment” can be.
The original lawsuit, filed in 2022, alleged Google secretly harvested face geometry and voiceprints, tracked users even when location tracking was disabled, and oversold the privacy of its Incognito mode. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton used the moment to declare that “Big Tech is not above the law.”
Behind the scenes, the state’s legal firepower was formidable — 3,000-lawyer Norton Rose, joined by smaller firms Crenshaw, Dupree & Milam and Cotton Bledsoe Tighe & Dawson. The state’s retainer agreement suggested rates as high as $3,780 per hour or up to 27% of any recovery — whichever was lower.
For Texas, the strategy of partnering with private firms on major tech suits has become something of a formula. The same playbook was used in its antitrust fight against BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, and in the 2022 privacy case against Facebook’s parent, Meta — which ended in a $1.4 billion settlement and nearly $143 million in legal fees.
In the latest clash, Google’s payout closes a chapter in the long standoff between state attorneys and Silicon Valley titans — a reminder that while tech giants may code the future, the fine print of the past still comes with a bill.
