Cookies cost Google record-breaking $22.5m fine.

• Position: PRIVACY - Brief article

Once again, Google and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have tangled, and the FTC has won. Google agreed in August to pay $22.5 million to settle FTC charges that it misrepresented to Apple s Safari browser users that it would not place tracking cookies or display targeted advertisements to those who thought they had blocked web tracking.

This is the largest penalty the FTC has ever obtained for this type of violation. In addition to being levied the civil penalty, Google was required to disable all the tracking cookies it had said it would not place on consumers' computers.

"The record-setting...