Tech giant Google has agreed to pay $8 million to settle a deceptive advertising claim with the State of Texas.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced an $8 million settlement with Google over a false and misleading ad campaign that promoted the company’s Pixel 4 smartphones.
“Texas will do whatever it takes to protect our citizens and our state economy from corporations’ false and misleading advertisements,” said Paxton in a news statement.
“If Google is going to advertise in Texas, their statements better be true. In this case, the company made statements that were blatantly false, and our settlement holds Google accountable for lying to Texans for financial gain,” he said.
The $8 million settlement stems from a 2019 to 2020 advertisement campaign in which Google hired radio DJs to record and broadcast detailed testimonials about their personal experiences using the Pixel 4 smartphone.
However, after Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigators peeked behind the curtain, they found that Google had never actually provided the radio DJs with a Pixel 4 smartphone to use for the promotion.
“Google and iHeartMedia paid influencers to promote products they never used, showing a blatant disrespect for truth-in-advertising rules,” said Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Samuel Levine. “The FTC will not stop working with our partners in the states to crack down on deceptive ads and ensure firms that break the rules pay a price.”
Despite being confronted over the campaign’s violation of Texas law, Google continued its deceptive endorsements and radio promotion, the Attorney General’s Office explained.
In total, Pixel 4 ads were broadcast nearly 30,000 times across 10 major regions using more than 11 radio networks, according to a statement from the FTC in November.
This is not the first time Google has settled over deceptive ad practices.
In 2022, the FTC and six other states settled a similar deceptive advertising case, with Google agreeing to pay more than $9 million. The $9.4 million was settled equally among the six states.
“Google enjoys significant influence over individual consumers and the marketplace broadly. It is imperative that large companies do not expect or enjoy special treatment under the law. They must be held accountable for their misdeeds,” said Attorney General Paxton. “I will continue to protect the integrity of our marketplace and ensure that companies who lie to Texas consumers are held to account.”
The Dallas Express reached out to Google’s media relations team for comment on the settlement but had not heard back at the time of publishing. However, company spokesperson Jose Castaneda told Reuters that Google takes advertising laws seriously and that the company was pleased to have resolved the issue.
