Connecticut Attorney General William Tong announced in the past week that his office has entered into two settlements focused on the privacy of consumer data.
The first, announced on August 19, 2026, is a settlement with TaxAct, a Texas company that assists taxpayers with filing tax returns. In the action, the AG alleged TaxAct was disclosing sensitive taxpayer information with Meta and Google, including “detailed financial information for its customers, including rounded adjusted gross income, rounded tax refunds and/or taxes owed, and certain types of income and deductions, including number of dependents and whether taxpayers made charitable contributions, or had investment income or mortgage or student loan interest.” TaxAct’s contract with Meta did not limit its sharing with third parties, despite TaxAct’s privacy notice that said it would “safeguard consumer privacy and to prohibit third parties from sharing TaxAct data.”
In announcing the settlement, Tong stated:
“Taxpayers trusted TaxAct with their most sensitive financial records for one specific purpose—to prepare their tax returns. Behind the scenes, our investigation showed that TaxAct abused that trust and allowed Meta and Google access to sensitive taxpayer data. This was a breach of trust that could have exposed taxpayers to potential scams and financial harm. In addition to the financial penalty, this settlement forces TaxAct to deploy groundbreaking new safeguards to monitor and govern third-party tracking on their site to ensure this never happens again.”
TaxAct agreed to pay $275,000 in fines and penalties and agreed to implement new third-party tracking compliance terms, create a review committee, develop written policies and procedures to govern and approve the use of any new third-party tracking technologies or changes to existing tracking, and regularly scan the company’s website to “ensure third-party technologies are functioning as approved.” These measures are good practices for all companies to adhere to when considering the use of third-party technologies.
On August 26, 2026, Tong announced a $17.1 billion multistate settlement with Meta, which resolves claims made against Meta by 51 state attorneys general. According to the press release:
“The agreement resolves claims by 51 attorneys general that the company designed Instagram with addictive features, knowingly exposed young users to serious mental harms, and intentionally misled the public about the safety of its platforms, among other things. This settlement is a monumental victory for the protection of America’s children and will fundamentally transform how the entire social media industry designs products for kids and teens.”
The settlement also resolves the multistate investigation led by Connecticut against Meta “for its sharing of nonpublic information about Facebook users with third parties, like Cambridge Analytica, leading up to the 2016 election.” Connecticut will receive up to $265.4 million from the settlement, “with at least half of all funds directed to remediate youth harms from social media, including but not limited to support for mental health and crisis intervention, after school and summer school programming, and implementation of phone-free school zones. This is the largest state settlement with a single defendant in history.”