Google nears settlement in Apple privacy suit: report

Google is set to pay the largest penalty ever levied on a single company by the US Federal Trade Commission
A Google logo seen through windows of Moscone Center in San Francisco last month. Google is close to reaching a deal to pay $22.5 mn to settle a suit over its secret bypassing of privacy settings of millions of Apple users, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Google is close to reaching a deal to pay $22.5 million to settle a suit over its secret bypassing of privacy settings of millions of Apple users, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The fine is expected to be the largest penalty ever levied on a single company by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), although Google makes a similar amount in revenue roughly every five hours, the Journal said Monday.

Google and the FTC have reached a proposed settlement and agreed on a fine, but the deal awaits final approval by the regulators and could be changed before it is released to the public, the Journal said.

Google was accused in February of using special "cookies" to bypass Apple and Microsoft , allowing the search giant to secretly track the of millions of users and target them with ads.

Google stopped using the offending cookies after the allegations surfaced, and has characterized the situation as the unintended side effect of an effort to personalize Google accounts.

(c) 2012 AFP

Citation: Google nears settlement in Apple privacy suit: report (2012, July 10) retrieved 19 March 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2012-07-google-nears-settlement-apple-privacy.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

Explore further

Facebook settles with FTC over deception charges

0 shares

Feedback to editors