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.'"

Comments

Designated Felon

[Aqualung812]

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.