Google has agreed to pay a USD 22.5 million fine to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it misrepresented to users of Apple's Safari browser that it would not place tracking cookies or serve targeted ads to those users, violating an earlier privacy settlement between the company and the FTC. In addition, Google must disable all the tracking cookies it had said it would not place on consumers' computers. According to the FTC's complaint, Google specifically told Safari users that because the Safari browser is set by default to block third-party cookies, as long as users do not change their browser settings, this would mean opting out of the Google advertising tracking cookie. However, Google still placed advertising tracking cookies on consumers' computers, in many cases by circumventing the Safari browser's default cookie-blocking setting, the FTC found. This was in violation of an earlier settlement with the FTC from October 2001, which barred Google from misrepresenting the extent to which consumers can exercise control over the collection of their information. The earlier settlement resolved FTC charges over Google's privacy policy on its social network Google Buzz.
