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FTC Reportedly Fining Google $22.5 Million Over Safari Privacy Abuse
New submitter Slashbots writes "Google will settle with the FTC for nearly $22.5 million over its bypassing of Apple's Safari browser privacy settings. It would be the largest settlement with the FTC over privacy-related charges ever. By abusing a privacy hole in Safari, Google circumvented user settings to show them advertising and track the user. 'Safari, unlike other browsers, blocks cookies from ad networks like Google's. But because of a loophole, Google had been able to avoid the block, as researchers discovered in February. It installed cookies and tracked Safari users across the Web to show them personalized ads.'"
This thing of "We do something illegal, you fine us, everyone's happy" must stop. Somebody must serve some nice jail time (not much, say 6-12 months) and then maybe such fucked up practices would diminish.
This is like me breaking into someone's house, pissing and shitting all over the place, then paying a 5 dollar fine for doing so. Would that stop me in the future? Hell no.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
... like most corporate fines, the number seems absurdly low. $22.5 million is about 0.06% (not 6%, 0.06%, six hundredths of a percent) of Google's 2011 revenue. This would be equivalent to fining the average person about twenty bucks, which isn't much of a deterrent when there's serious money to be made by breaking the rules. Until fines for these kinds of violations at least come close to matching the potential profit, the behavior isn't going to change.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Is this illegal because of the DMCA? It is very common for people and companies to circumvent application security. It is usually up to the application to secure itself.
Does this mean that I could sue someone for using some form of XRay glasses? Because my clothes are supposed to prevent people from seeing me naked...
If my privacy was violated, what is the effect of this ruling to me? I assume I would receive nothing from the settlement, as it is a penalty/fine. And the fine is probably less than the benefit they received from the advertising they were able to sell. Just a cost of doing business. How disappointing that we can't put some teeth into judgments like this.
The part that begins with "Google, the largest settlement" isn't a sentence. Either it's missing a verb or it's a wrongly split part of the first sentence: "Google will settle with the FTC for nearly $22.5 million, the largest settlement with the FTC over privacy-related charges."
The EPA already attempts to do this using what has been termed the "designated felon".
The idea is that if there are severe environmental damages, the company has to have someone designated as the person that will do jail time. The idea is that this person is in charge of setting and enforcing the policies that will keep her out of jail.
It even allows someone that violates the policies to be the one that serves jail time. In other words, the DF says "you must do this", and if you ignore that, you do the time.
However, this isn't enforced as much as it should be, and I'm not aware of any other use of this idea outside EPA regulations.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Do no evil!
"Google, the largest settlement with FTC over privacy related charges ever. "
Excellent, I agree.
...and will be taken as the a cost of doing business. Nuf said.
Because of that fine, Apple will have to use the cheap toilet paper for a whole DAY! YOU try to develop with a sore anus!
The FTC should be on top of this stuff. But 22 million dollars is nothing for Google. They make that in about ten minutes.
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it is supposed to and Google gets fined? Shouldn't Apple also get fined? Submitting hidden forms is not an unknown concept in web development. Its not like Google hacked the users computer and changed the Safari settings. The settings were broken if they didn't block this. I'm not saying I agree with what Google was doing, I just think there were some serious issues with Safari's privacy settings if they allowed this in the first place.
I also don't think Google is the only company doing this. I actually had an interview with an ad company a few months back where they actually bragged about how they could track Safari users despite the default privacy settings. I never followed up on it, but I'd imagine it is something similar. I didn't take the job (for other reasons).
Or file a class-action suit if they feel it's worth a damn. The FTC ruling is more of a regulatory move. The FTC isn't a court, and so you won't see the fabulous sums bandied about in law suits.
This article has an interesting writeup of what happened, for those who are interested in the details.
i mean, er, don't be really evil*
*we made need to add another really in there at some point
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
question is, why aren't they fining anyone else who did this? Google is not the only one. I suppose nobody realized Microsoft made the complaint while doing it themselves along with facebook?
Summary grammar is very poor. Can't someone that can write proper English double check a summary before it is posted?
So remember when you get excited about things like:
The manifesto, obtained yesterday by BuzzFeed, is titled "The Technology Revolution" and lays out an argument — in doomsday tones —for keeping the government entirely out of regulating anything online, and for leaving the private sector to shape the new online space.
You need to consider this story and how the private sector will abuse privacy left and right if it drives up revenues. With not even a public slap on the wrist from the government, you are faced with individuals playing a PR campaign against massive corporations. That rarely ends well for the individuals and the users.
My work here is dung.
Google is evil.
So, how large of a fine is Facebook going to pay?
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
No, Google is being fined for taking advantage of a bug in Apple's software to make money, rather than reporting the issue to Apple so they could fix it. Heck, there's even a menu item in Safari to "Report bugs to Apple..." You seem to be blaming the victim for the poor choices of the person taking advantage of them - if someone accidentally leaves a window unlocked that doesn't translate into a right to burgle the house.
Unethical is one way to describe Google's behavior. Another way to describe it is criminal, as clearly Google was obtaining unauthorized access to a computer. You know, the sort of thing that gets people time in prison.
That's a problem with corporate law - companies have all the rights of people, but only one real responsibility - to make money. Minor fines for major infractions do not deter criminal behavior.
And if you don't have good locks on your front door or if you leave a window open then whomever steals all your stuff shouldn't be prosecuted. They can keep your stuff as well.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Powerful men use their power to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. It is harmful, unfair, and wrong as wrong can be. It is also how the world actually works. It has always been this way, and always will be.
Complain all you want, this will *never* change.
Form what I remember, safari blocks third party cookies by default. Google used a trick to make it accept them that didn't really 'exploit' the software, as it was not really a bug. It's Apple's fault for having a browser with that flaw! You are responsible for code running on your computer. You cannot force a computer to accept a cookie! And sending cookies is not a crime!
If you reverse things this is like a person getting fined because they purposely accessed information on a public web server that was exposed by accident.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Google wasn't the only one using this widely publicized bug in Safari? According to the original WSJ article:
So, how large of a fine is Facebook going to pay?
The thing was, Google was already under an FCC settlement because of violating privacy policies in the past:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/03/google.shtm. This means that Google can get in trouble for doing things that other companies get away with. It's also why the "Oh, we didn't know that our tracking cookies were sticking where people didn't want them" excuse doesn't fly; they were subject to special rules and they were supposed to be making super extra double sure that they didn't do anything to impinge upon users' privacy.
Sort of like how some convicted drunk drivers have driving restrictions that the rest of us don't.
It's an election year. Better pay up on your protection money *cough* "campaign contributions" sometime between now and November.
How do you levy fines against Google (or any company for that matter) for exploiting *in a non-harmful way* Apple's fuck-ups? If Apple wanted their browser to truly block cookies then there should not be a way around it. It's not like Google was deploying malicious code.. The punishment fits the 'crime' -- if you care to absurdly call it a crime.. :thumbsdown: once again to the FTC. ugh
Progress defines me
Google Does Know Evil
Wasn't there something about an opt out/opt in setting on your google account for off-site tracking?
I think here the FTC just wanted an excuse to fine GOOG.
I think people are just surprised google was able to track them on an iphone, whether or not they consented to it or not.
Because irresponsible members of the press attribute features which originated in Opera and Firefox to Apple. A few years later it'll turn out Opera and Mozilla never bothered patenting cookie blocking because it was so obvious, but Apple did. Then Apple will sue them and get an injunction against their products for something they had first.
Two words: Prior Art
Two words: Prior Art
How adorable. And those two words would magically undo the months/years of lost time and money spent in trial when Apple starts up the iLitigate?
Oh, wait, sorry, I forgot, those two words also summon hordes of cash to the defendant so that the trial can go that long in the first place without bankrupting them. So everything will just be fine! After all, there's thousands of other developers out there, and they're all the same, so what's a few lost months or years on a small group of them, I mean, really.
They finally installed naked scanners in JFK
Please tell us what scanners that are naked look like.
By the way, it's "I", not "i". I know that it takes an awful lot of effort, but you can press one of the keys marked "Shift" when you type the letter "I" (just think: do that and you'll be able to fool some people into thinking that you have a clue).
Next week, we'll discuss counting without using your fingers. That way, you can keep one in your nose as usual.
uh, all companies involved were fully aware of this "exploit" and nobody fixed it. If google is not ethical, the APL's is negligent (for at least two years they were aware of this workaround).