FTC gives Google $22.5M slap on the wrist

The latest chapter in Google's online privacy story involves surreptitiously circumventing privacy settings in the Safari browser. Now, Google has agreed to pay the FTC's $22.5 million fine for its privacy violation. The case centered around Google websites placing cookies on a user's system despite Safari browser settings intended to disallow this. Curiously, the suit hinged not on the privacy violation itself, but on the fact that Google lied about it, mentioning on a help page that they would not store information about user's visits. Google claims the violation was not intentional, but privacy experts and watchdogs are more suspicious.