Google Must Pay Up $22.5 Million to FTC in Apple Safari Privacy Settlement

From DailyTech: It has been confirmed that Google will pay $22.5 million to settle its case with Apple regarding bypassing Safari's security settings.

This move was predicted last month, when reports started circulating that Google's possible $22.5 million fine in the case would be the largest ever given by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Google was charged with bypassing Apple Safari user privacy settings in order to track people who had previously blocked that type of tracking. Google used special computer cookies to accomplish this. These third-party cookies are used to track what users are doing on the Internet, which in turn helps Web giants like Google target users with suitable advertisements.

However, the Wall Street Journal ended up outing Google for placing the ad-tracking cookies on Safari users.

Google was able to successfully get past Safari's browser settings for privacy, which attempts to block certain types of cookies. Safari accepts first-party cookies (the Web site the user is on) or second-party cookies (the user's browser), but blocks third-party cookies, which links the browser to an entirely different Web site. The mobile version of Safari, which can be found on iOS devices, has the ability to block all cookies or none at all.

Google responded to the charges by saying that the tracking was unintentional, and that no harm came from the company's inadvertent actions.

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