Google Fined $22.5M Over Safari Privacy Violation 118
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."
Re:hmmm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Semi-silently? The text explicitly tells you it's installing Safari and gives you a checkbox to not install it. What exactly is illegal?
Google does no evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not admitting? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Not only did lawyers imagine such a world, they have created it. How many times do you hear of a company that gets bullied by a larger company and agrees to pay money to make the bully go away--even when the smaller company is clearly in the right--because paying the bully to go away is less expensive than fighting and winning against it in court?
Re:Not admitting? (Score:3, Insightful)
The thought of Google paying Apple to make it stop bullying it gave me a good laugh.
Re:hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean the checkbox in plain sight that you can simply un-check, and not install Safari?
You know, I always used to look down on people the same way you are now. For years and years.
Until, one fateful day, I did not pay enough attention to an Adobe Reader update. It installed Google Chrome. I guess I missed an opt-out checkbox somewhere along the way. (Unless it was a 100% stealth install? I guess that's possible.)
Ever since that happened, I no longer look down on people the same way like that. I think an out-opt default, when we are talking about installing brand new software (not updates), is just plain wrong for companies to do. In my opinion, new software installs should always be opt-in.
It's just the right thing to do.
Re:IE 10 potential fine? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it says "Apple Software Update" (Score:3, Insightful)
"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.
Re:hmmm... (Score:2, Insightful)