back to article Google expected to cough measly $22.5m for Safari privacy gaffe

Google is reportedly set to cough up a piddly penalty payment of $22.5m to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to settle its sneaky bypassing of the default privacy settings of Apple's Safari browser. It was revealed by the Wall Street Journal in February this year that Google, Vibrant Media Inc, WPP PLC's Media Innovation …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    lies

    google love us

    1. Steve the Cynic

      Re: lies

      Of course they love us. We're a great source of revenue...

    2. BillG

      Re: lies

      you learn write bad

  2. RichyB

    where on earth does this money go to... $22.5m is still alot of money. will help the US economy lol

    1. Keith Williams
      FAIL

      Petty Cash

      22.5 million dollars? The US debt is in the TRILLIONS, that's an extra 6 zeros behind 1 million.

      this is 22.5 million dollars:

      $22,500,000

      This is 1 Trillion

      $1,000,000,000,000

      22.5 million dollars is a drop in the bucket for the US's financial problems.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cost vs Reward

    They probably had an analysis from the start.

    This is going to earn us $xxx,xxx,xxx

    If we get caught we're probably going to lose $x,xxx,xxx

    Worst case scenario we still earn approximately... a shit load

    Hell, let's do it!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cost vs Reward

      Agreed, and the worst part about it (IMO) is that hardly anyone seems to care. One could imagine that whenever such huge fines are being charged something pretty heavy is going wrong.

      However; the figures are often so extremely huge and Google usually has hardly any problem coughing it all up that it seems to be totally losing its symbolic value as well.

      "Google gets fine, Google pays fine, what was that?".

      btw; this isn't something only applicable to Google; Microsoft has performed the same feasts and more that often the same can be said about other multi-billion companies.

    2. qt101
      Megaphone

      Re: Cost vs Reward + 5hrs pay $20 million

      Right on cue there! that's chicken feed to what they get in return for what should be 'our private data' obviously sold for a hefty return. Re: statement by the WSJ, Google racks up sales of over $20m roughly every five hours.

      Typical Google board meeting: on todays agenda we have 'Spying, Privacy breaching cost offsets' [show of hands to breach privacy of our user base? raise your hand; all say [I] for additional pay bonus!

      On a serious note: take your security n privacy into your own hands, block all that crap out: with host file edits, block-lists/filters, ABE custom rule sets. the 'Do not track' setting in your browser won't stop tracking either.

      They're using bypassing methods either in .js, cookies, php logging etc.

      We've even got super cookies now that really never get deleted, they stay hidden & can be called upon even after deletion :-( I've been researching nefarious cookie syncing & ever/super cookies for almost 2 years, with some very eye opening results. The webs playing dirtier based on our use of ad blockers. They've gotta get one up on us.

  4. BillG
    WTF?

    "Accidental"?

    The law should read that all accidental violations of privacy must be treated as deliberate and corporate officers are legally responsible. Threaten to put Google's CEO in jail for ANY privacy violation and watch them clean up their act.

  5. toadwarrior
    Thumb Down

    If they're not going to treat it as a criminal offense (which no doubt it would be a normal citizen did this) then the fine should be significantly higher. 22 million is pocket money for google and it's not like this is the first time they violated people's privacy.

  6. Gannon (J.) Dick

    Silicon Valley: The Play Money Wasteland

    When the personal information of your competitors' products becomes currency, and your supply chain starts with slave labour like conditions you have nothing advanced to offer the human race. This has all been tried before.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nothing is going to change..

    .. until such violations are in CRIMINAL law. The moment one of the suits has to consider jailtime, even if it's only a day per breach they will start paying attention. Otherwise it's just the cost of ignoring the law doing business and exactly zip will change after a penalty.

    I have the same expectation of Facebook - I just discovered something which is a criminal offence with a per-instance fine which is only in the 4 digit range. However, at the volume that this takes place it'll amount to quite a few million, so now the challenge is to find a lawyer who leaves something for me after the frag fest called class action suit..

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