Google may be in the process of negotiating with the US Federal Trade Commission over a fine for using an invasive advertising cookie on Safari. According to Bloomberg, “a person familiar with the matter” says that the company could pay up to tens of millions of dollars over a violation of privacy safeguards. If the case goes forward, the FTC will apparently allege that Google “deceived consumers and violated terms of a consent decree signed with the commission last year” when it tracked Safari users’ web activity regardless of their privacy settings.
Google facing FTC fine for circumventing Safari privacy settings, says Bloomberg
According to Bloomberg, the FTC is negotiating with Google over a fine after Google was found to be tracking users’ web browsing with cookies on Safari even if they had set privacy settings to block it.
According to Bloomberg, the FTC is negotiating with Google over a fine after Google was found to be tracking users’ web browsing with cookies on Safari even if they had set privacy settings to block it.
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
If Google pays this fine, it could still face investigation by the EU, which is also rumored to be looking into the matter. Google has previously maintained that the breach was accidental, and that the practices it employs are commonplace for web tracking. Besides Safari, Microsoft has also alleged that Google used a similarly invasive cookie on Internet Explorer. The FTC declined to comment on Bloomberg’s report.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
