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Google Fined $22.5M Over Safari Privacy Violation
wiredmikey writes "The US Federal Trade Commission fined Google $22.5 million for violating the privacy of people who used rival Apple's Safari web browser even after pledging not to do so. The FTC said Google had agreed with the commission in October 2011 not to place tracking cookies on or deliver targeted ads to Safari users, but then went ahead and did so. 'For several months in 2011 and 2012, Google placed a certain advertising tracking cookie on the computers of Safari users who visited sites within Google's DoubleClick advertising network,' the FTC said in a statement. 'Google had previously told these users they would automatically be opted out of such tracking.' While Google agreed to the fine, it did NOT admit it had violated the earlier agreement."
Now if only they'd fine Apple for installing Safari as a trojan semi-silently in the background while calling it an iTunes update on the surface. That's illegal about a dozen different ways.
Only a lawyer can imagine a world where a person agrees to paying a 22.5 million dollar fine and then can seriously claim they did nothing wrong.
Currently hooked on AMP
But remember, evil is subjective.
Step 1: Get caught doing something shitty
Step 2: Promise to the regulators that it won't happen again
GO TO Step 1
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
"We'll pay your fine... not because we are wrong, but because it.... 'costs too much' to prove that we didn't really do anything wrong."
I see that Google has grown large enough and been around long enough to attract high priced, high powered legal council. Good for them. They are a true corporation now.
They just need to take the final step of setting up the revolving door between themselves and Washington DC and they will truly be in the big leagues.
I want to be able to log in! But I don't want any stateful information stored outside the stateless protocols!
I want to have a browser that makes exceptions to just outright disallowing 3rd party cookies, but I want revenge when those exceptions backfire!
I don't think Google "said" they would honor it. I think they actually said they wouldn't. They're being sued over the Safari thing because they said they wouldn't track people using it then did anyway. So mostly the fine is for lying, not the tracking.
Well, given the contribution of what was alleged to Google's profits, the $22.5 million is probably way too much for any kind of justice. But that's pretty much beside the point when it comes to an out of court settlement. What it is probably more relevant is that it is both:
Hence, the settlement with no admission of liability. It's win-win for everyone except the lawyers, etc., who would make money from extended litigation.
Because the Safari settings wasn't just 'asking' not to be tracked, but rather was supposed to prevent cookies from being placed by 3rd parties (essentially web sites you hadn't directly visited). What google did was to simulate a fake form submission to this third party site in order to set a cookie.
Not similar at all to the honor system 'do not track' setting.
Right, but they said they wouldn't because EU law required them to -- a law that would be unconstitutional (violating the first Amendment) if it was a US law. So why is the US enforcing such a law?
As a somewhat absurd hypothetical, consider if Iran passed a law that a company can't do business with Iran if they hire any Jews. Some company really wants to do business with Iran, so as Iranian law requires, they say they won't hire any Jews. Then the United States government gets a tip that this company has hired a few Jews, investigates, and fines the company. Does that seem like something the US should be doing?
No, Google is not being sued for lying. They are being sued for purposely circumventing a privacy control via what could be called a hack. Now, you can blame Apple for the fact that this hack was possible, but do you not blame the party who purposely circumvented the mechanism? If I can find a way to circumvent your computer's security mechanism, would you only blame the OS manufacturer, or would you be upset that I broke in?
"Semi-silently"? What, kind of like a stealth aircraft that, umm, isn't really particularly stealthy?
The dialog is clearly split - top half, iTunes, bottom half, other stuff. I uncheck it. It clearly states, right up front, that it's optional. Easy.
And the titlebar at this point says "Apple Software Update". Once you choose to go ahead and install iTunes, then it will say iTunes updates, which I think sounds alarmingly sensible, quite honestly.
iTunes is a dreadful, dreadful piece of software on Windows. But you're flat out fabricating stories, and that's not fair.
This has been long forgotten by the people who oversee the court system, but the purpose of the law is "to moderate human behaviour."
Such a petty fine against such an incredibly wealthy company will do nothing to moderate their behaviour. To make it worse, Google is openly engaged in large scale tax evasion/avoidance. In the UK last year out of £224 million in taxes they only paid a pitfull £6 million. A fine of £14 million is pocket money to them - just operating overhead. If the government wants to moderate Google's behaviour (besides just pretending to want to) then they would fine them far, far more.
PS. In the words of Willard Mitt Romney, "Corporations are people too, my friend!"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2125883/Amazon-Google-sordid-reality-tax-avoidance.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/08/09/is-google-avoiding-or-evading-taxes-in-the-uk/
You are absolutely right, they didn't lie. As a matter of fact, they didn't even commit the crime. Google used a feature, bug, whatever, offered by Safari, to allow logged in users to use a opt-in service. The real problem is that they left the door open, which allowed for other advertisers to piggy-back off their cookie. I feel the fine is appropriately sized, but now I want to know when the government is going after those that piggybacked. I guarantee Google has that information.
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found