Google will pay a record fine of $ 22.5 million to end accusations that violated a promise of privacy by tracking stealthily million internet using Apple's Safari browser .
The penalty announced Thursday by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC, for its acronym in English) corresponds to the figure that The Associated Press and other media had reported last month. It is the highest fine imposed by the FTC against a company for violating a previous agreement with the agency.
In the latest deal Google Inc. did not admit doing anything irregular.
The fine has nothing to do with the collection of data from Google, but for having misrepresented what was happening. Last October, the company owns the most popular search engine signed a 20-year agreement which, among other things, included a commitment not to mislead their consumers about their privacy practices towards.
The FTC opened six months ago research on the activities of users of Safari, after a researcher at Stanford University revealed that Google had managed to evade the defenses of Safari that are supposed to prevent third parties to track Internet activity without permission.
The virtual tracking was performed using mini-programs called cookies, which help Internet services and marketing advertisers to work based on the analysis of the interests involved in a person browsing the Internet.
However, the fact that he evaded the integrated settings in your browser by Apple seemed to contradict a statement issued by Google in the online help center, which assured that Safari users need not do anything more to ensure that Google not would trace your online activities.
The apparent contradiction between words and Google shares were the focus of the FTC investigation.
The fine for Google surpassed that of almost 19 million dollars that the Federal Trade Commission imposed a telemarketing firm accused of misleading people into believing that effected donations to charitable organizations.
