In line with last
month's report on negotiations between Google and the U.S. Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) over the company's circumvention of privacy settings in
Safari, the FTC has officially announced that Google has agreed to pay a record
$22.5 million penalty to settle the case.
The settlement is part
of the FTC’s ongoing efforts make sure companies live up to the privacy
promises they make to consumers, and is the largest penalty the agency has ever
obtained for a violation of a Commission order. In addition to the civil
penalty, the order also requires Google to disable all the tracking cookies it
had said it would not place on consumers’ computers.
“The record setting
penalty in this matter sends a clear message to all companies under an FTC
privacy order,” said Jon Leibowitz, Chairman of the FTC. “No matter how big or
small, all companies must abide by FTC orders against them and keep their
privacy promises to consumers, or they will end up paying many times what it
would have cost to comply in the first place.”
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| Graphic from The Wall Street Journal |
Google took advantage
of a loophole in Safari's privacy settings designed to prevent placement of
third-party cookies by default, using invisible web forms to trick Safari into
thinking that users had interacted with Google's ads and thus allowing cookies
to be placed on the device.
The FTC specifically
charged Google with violating an October 2011 order related to a previous case
of privacy violations. In the new Safari case, FTC commissioners voted 4-1 to
approve the settlement, with the dissenting commissioner arguing against the
settlement allowing Google to deny all liability related to the issue.
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