Google Settles With States to Avoid Class Action Lawsuit over Tracking

Google tracking

Google tracking

Google has just settled with 37 states and the District of Columbia in a $17 million settlement to avoid a class action motion “dubbed Safari-gate” for installing tracking cookies on the computers of unwilling Safari users. This deal follows another $22.5 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after a Delaware ruling last year over the same charge, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The investigation stems from February 2012 when Stanford researcher Jonathan Mayer discovered that Google and three other online ad companies had circumvented Apple Safari web browser default settings by placing tracking cookies directly onto users’ computers without their knowledge.

You can see the entire settlement here, which was posted on the Connecticut Attorney General’s website.

Considering the potential large sum a class action suit could bring, do you think the court’s penalty was fair or not enough?

Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. image by the Associated Press

Daniel Zeevi

By Daniel Zeevi

Daniel is a social network architect, web developer, infographic designer, writer, speaker and founder of DashBurst. Full-time futurist and part-time content curator, always on the hunt for disruptive new technology, creative art and web humor.