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Google to Pay $17 Million to Settle Privacy Case

Posted by Unknown on from the lemme-dig-that-out-of-my-pocket dept.

cold fjord writes "The New York Times reports, 'Google agreed on Monday to pay $17 million to 37 states and the District of Columbia ... The case involved Google's bypassing of privacy settings in Apple's Safari browser to use cookies to track users and show them advertisements in 2011 and 2012. Google has said it discontinued circumventing the settings early last year, after the practice was publicly reported, and stopped tracking Safari users and showing them personalized ads. ... the case is one of a growing pile of government investigations, lawsuits and punishments related to privacy matters at the company. They include cases involving a social networking tool called Buzz, illegal data collection by Street View vehicles and accusations of wiretapping to show personalized ads in Gmail. '" From the DOJ, the settlement (PDF).

5 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. violation of trust by noh8rz10 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm still really upset that Google hacked my browser to install tracking beacons without my knowledge and against my expressed wishes. I think this is emblematic of how they do business and how lowly they think of their "users". I also uninstalled all the google apps from my iPhone after the tracker story from last week.

    What's the alternative? Hopefully, this monoculture will be replaced with a rich mix of companies and options.

    1. Re:violation of trust by cheater512 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There is a diverse range of companies. Alternatives include Microsoft or Yahoo.

      Yeah I'm sticking to Google too. Nothing prevents the alternatives from being worse.

  2. As a Safari User... by whisper_jeff · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As a Safari user, where's my cheque?

    Oh. That's right. My privacy was invaded but governments are going to get the money.

    That seems fair. ...

  3. For those looking for a technical explanation by antifoidulus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    TFA doesn't actually contain any details on how they did that, but (ironically) with the help of Google, I was able to find a page that details the process. The short answer is they took advantage of the fact that any form submitted from the browser to a site would allow that site to install cookies, so they added a hidden form submit to their ads.

    --
    Monstar L
  4. Google would never do that to me. by Kaz+Kylheku · · Score: 5, Funny

    I use Google+, and Chrome, and Google Apps, Mail, AdWords, etc.

    Google loves me as a result and respects my privacy.