Google has recently agreed to pay a $22.5 million civil penalty to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to settle charges that it misled users of the Safari internet browser in relation to the use of cookies.

The FTC had commenced proceedings against the Internet search engine giant for a breach of the terms of a 2011 agreement between the parties caused by Google allegedly bypassing the default “Do Not Track” cookie settings of the Safari browser (which is most commonly used on  Macs, iPhones and iPads).

Cookies are small text files which a website sends to a user’s computer in order to recognise that user as he or she browses the website. Information can be gathered in this way about a user’s preferences and ads tailored towards that user’s interests can be shown as they browse different sites. Safari users were informed that the browser’s initial settings blocked third-party cookies by default and that no further action was necessary. The FTC claimed that by circumventing these settings and allowing tracking cookies to be used, Google had breached the terms of the 2011 agreement. Google claimed that the tracking was inadvertent but nonetheless agreed to pay the record fine.

As the largest fine handed down to date in this area, it indicates an increasing willingness by the FTC to take strong measures to protect Internet users’ privacy. This trend has also been repeated in the EU with the introduction of laws requiring greater transparency in relation to the use of cookies by website operators (see our previous article on this issue here).

Contributed by David Cullen & John Farrell