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.'"

Jail Time?

[war4peace]

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.

Okay, I'm glad to see this, but ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

... 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.

Re:Jail Time?

[aristotle-dude]

How do you imprison a corporation?

The "buck" is supposed to stop with the CEO of the company so you imprison/fine the CEO and/or the C-level exec who signed off on the project personally.

Some exec should be seeing either a personal fine, jail time or both.

wrong question

[Anonymous Coward]

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? [zdnet.com]

Government's Role in "Internet Freedom"

[eldavojohn]

After seeing how Slashdot reacted to Ron Paul realigning his priorities [slashdot.org], I think it's worth noting that "internet freedom" means taking the bad with the good. On the one hand, everyone noticed that SOPA would be an impossibility with the Pauls' new proposition. On the other hand, fines like these or even investigations to what Google or Safari or users are doing on the internet would be completely outside of the government's jurisdiction and as such would requires users to punish Google for these Safari abuses. And it is my opinion that the free market would not only care little about such an issue but be powerless to stop the largest online search provider.

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.

Re:So Safari's privacy setting doesn't work as

[gnasher719]

it is supposed to and Google gets fined? Shouldn't Apple also get fined?

You go to jail for burglary. You don't go to jail for selling locks that a highly experienced burglar can open. Apple did provide security against Random J. Hacker, they just didn't provide enough security against a multi billion dollar company working hard to break the security.

I bet if you built a safe then Google could find someone who manages to open it as well.