Google to pay largest FTC penalty ever for privacy violations

[BigTyla]

After news like this, who in the world would still willingly use Chrome?

Google to pay largest FTC penalty ever for privacy violations | Fox News

Google is close to a deal to pay $22.5 million to settle charges related to its surreptitious bypassing of the privacy settings of millions of Apple users, according to officials briefed on the settlement terms.

The fine is expected to be the largest penalty ever levied on a single company by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. It offers the latest sign of the FTC's stepped-up approach to policing online privacy violations, coming just six months after The Wall Street Journal reported on Google's practices.

While the fine likely will represent only a tiny portion of Google's revenues—last year, the Internet giant raked in that much cash roughly every five hours or so—it counts among a series of negative reports about Google's privacy practices that could undermine users' trust in its services.

The current charges involve Google's use of special computer code to trick Apple's Safari Web-browsing software into letting it monitor users that had blocked such tracking. Google disabled the code after being contacted by the Journal, which wrote about Google's practices in February.

Google officials say tracking of Apple users was inadvertent and didn't cause any harm to consumers. But Google's actions appeared to contradict previous statements it had made assuring Apple users that they could rely on Safari's privacy settings to block unwanted tracking.

Google said in a statement, "The FTC is focused on a 2009 help center page.…We have now changed that page and taken steps to remove the ad cookies," referring to the small computer files that can enable tracking of people's online activities.

An FTC spokeswoman declined to comment.

[FeaRpb]

Using it right now and loving it.

[onebadmollafolla]

Fining Google $22.5 million is like fining your average Joe a $1.50. Seems Apple and Google have their beef.

[stealthify]

$22.5 million ... last year, the Internet giant raked in that much cash roughly every five hours or so

Damn.

[HilbillyHomeboy]

[93STLTH]

Meh... I'm sure they would be bored off their asses monitoring my internet use.

[BigTyla]

Using it right now and loving it.

Why? What does it offer you that you're willing to use it over a browser that is far superior (Firefox) while willingly giving up your internet privacy?

[FeaRpb]

Firefox superior? Please. Maybe back in 07/08. But still back then it was memory leak hell and still not very secure. I loved people who used firefox back then, they were simple targets.

Firefox is a pathetically slow browser and way less secure compared to Chrome. I like Chrome because it works the way I want it to while still being sleek. As for willingly giving up my internet privacy to Google. They are the least of my worries. And really, I find it comical.

Name me something you can do with FireFox better than I can do with Chrome.



*EDIT* The only good thing Firefox had going for it recently was 2 1/2 years ago when Firesheep was around. (But even then, that is just an addon, so firefox was really just there in the background)

[BigTyla]

Firefox is a pathetically slow browser and way less secure compared to Chrome.

References, please. I've tried both browsers and noticed no speed differences between the two. As for security, I'm not aware of any datamining attempts by Mozilla in the Firefox browser, unlike Google with Chrome. If you are only referring to viruses, etc, please provide references for this as well.

Name me something you can do with FireFox better than I can do with Chrome.

One word: addons. It lets me do ANYTHING better than Chrome can.

[NickS VR4]

References, please. I've tried both browsers and noticed no speed differences between the two. As for security, I'm not aware of any datamining attempts by Mozilla in the Firefox browser, unlike Google with Chrome. If you are only referring to viruses, etc, please provide references for this as well.



One word: addons. It lets me do ANYTHING better than Chrome can.

Decided to check, turns out Chrome has addons (on the PC).