Google Could Face a Large Fine For Bypassing Mobile Safari Privacy Settings

Google could face a large fine for bypassing mobile Safari's privacy restrictions to enable functionality of its +1 button on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, reports Mercury News.

The Federal Trade Commission is deep into an investigation of Google's actions in bypassing the default privacy settings of Apple's (AAPL) Safari browser for Google users, according to sources familiar with ongoing negotiations between the company and the government.

Within the next 30 days, the FTC could order the Mountain View search giant to pay an even larger fine in the Safari case than the penalty the Federal Communications Commission hit Google with Friday, say the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.


"We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled," Google said. "We created a temporary communication link between Safari browsers and Google's servers, so that we could ascertain whether Safari users were also signed into Google, and had opted for personalized ads and other content. However, the Safari browser contained functionality that then enabled other Google advertising cookies to be set on the browser."

You can read Google's full explanation here.

Read More [via ZDNet]