Google has settled with 37 states and the District of Columbia in a privacy lawsuit that had sparked concern over the giant’s seemingly cavalier attitude towards privacy laws. Google has agreed to pay $17 million to the states.
The lawsuit was over Google’s secretly storing cookies in Safari. This circumvented Apple’s default settings that prevent the installation of third-party cookies. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman stated “By tracking millions of people without their knowledge, Google violated not only their privacy, but also their trust.”
Google’s cookies
The cookies track a user’s activity on a website, such as when they access it, and what they look at. In Google’s case, the cookies track a user’s activity over multiple websites and are used to target ads to the user. According to Google, the cookies in this case gathered broad information, but did not track personal information.
More legal trouble for Google
This lawsuit followed one by the FTC last year over a similar issue. In that case, Google paid $22.5 million, but was able to avoid admitting wrongdoing, claiming that it was a mistake that they fixed as soon as it became public.
In this case, Google has promised to prevent future breaches of privacy by not circumventing privacy settings, and being more forthright about cookies to users.
An attempted class action suit by private users of Safari was dismissed last month.
News sources: VB Business, The Verge, Business Insider
