The $1.375 Billion Reason Google’s AI is Broken for Texans (And Why “Pro” Doesn’t Matter)

I’ve been banging my head against a wall with Google Gemini. I pay for the “Pro” subscription. I have a Pixel. I have 2TB of Google One storage. I have Google phone service. Hell, my Google Maps photos have over 300 MILLION views! I’m, by all definitions, the ideal Google customer.

But when I asked Gemini a simple question, “Make a list of every state I’ve taken a photo in”, it choked. It gave me a cryptic GOOGLE_PHOTOS_ACCOUNT_NOT_ELIGIBLE error. Even though the new personalization features advertise that it can search your photos!

I spent an hour troubleshooting. I checked my extensions. I verified my “Face Grouping” settings. I argued with the AI (which, ironically, didn’t know why it was broken either). It turns out, nothing’s broken. It’s a geofence. And if you live in Texas or Illinois, you’re inside it.

The “Feature Hole” in the Lone Star State

Google has quietly disabled its most advanced AI photo features, specifically the “Ask Photos” extension, for all users in Texas and Illinois. It doesn’t matter if you pay for Gemini Advanced. It doesn’t matter if you manually opted into Face Grouping. If your billing address or IP is in Texas, the feature simply doesn’t exist for you.

The reason isn’t technical. It’s legal. And it’s got a $1.4 billion price tag.

The “CUBI” Act and the Billion-Dollar Settlements

The culprit is the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act (CUBI). This law, on the books since 2009, prohibits companies from capturing your “biometric identifiers” (like a scan of your face geometry or voiceprint) without explicit, informed consent.

For years, Big Tech ignored this or buried the consent in Terms of Service nobody reads. Then, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton started suing. The results were catastrophic for Silicon Valley’s bank accounts:

• Meta (Facebook): In July 2024, Meta agreed to pay $1.4 billion to Texas to settle allegations that it violated CUBI by tagging people in photos without proper consent.
• Google: In October 2025, Google finalized its own massive settlement with Texas for $1.375 billion. The lawsuit explicitly targeted Google’s collection of “facial geometry” and “voiceprints” through products like Google Photos and Assistant.

Why “Ask Photos” Had to Die

Here’s the connection: To answer a question like “Show me photos of me in Japan,” the AI has to actively scan and process the facial geometry of the people in your library to distinguish “You” from “Random Guy in Background.”

Even though Google has a “Face Grouping” toggle in settings, legal experts suggest their legal team clearly decided that the risk of another billion-dollar lawsuit wasn’t worth it. The settlement with Texas didn’t force them to change the product, but it made them pay up.

But rather than navigating the minefield of CUBI compliance for their new AI tools, Google chose the “Nuclear Option”: They just turned it off!

The “Pro” Subscription Scam

This is where I get angry. I’m paying the same monthly price for “Gemini Advanced” as someone in Oklahoma or New York. But because I live a few miles across a state line, I’m receiving a chemically castrated version of the product.

• If you’re in Texas: The “Google Photos” extension tile in Gemini is literally missing. It’s not greyed out; it’s gone.
• If you’re in Illinois: You’re in the same boat, thanks to their own “Biometric Information Privacy Act” (BIPA), which has caused similar legal headaches.

Google confirms this quietly in statements to the press, noting “The ability to ask Photos to edit your images is not available to users in Texas and Illinois at this time,” but they don’t warn you about this before you swipe your credit card for the Pro plan.

The Bottom Line

If you’re a Texas resident wondering why your expensive AI assistant feels dumber than advertised, stop checking your settings. You aren’t doing anything wrong. You’re just collateral damage in a billion-dollar war between the Attorney General and Google’s legal department.

And until they figure out a way to scan your face without scanning your face (or until they lobby to change the law), we’re stuck paying full price for half a product.