Business & Tech
Google Agrees to Pay States $17 Million to Settle Claims
Mountain View based company also agrees to change practices that were allegedly violating consumer protection laws.
California is among the states receiving settlements.
Google is alleged to have circumvented the default settings to place cookies on Safari users’ computers without their knowledge or consent, violating consumer protection laws.
“Consumers have the right to make informed decisions with respect to their privacy online, and those choices should be respected,” Coakley said. “As a result of this settlement, consumers will be able to exercise more meaningful control over how Google sends advertisements to them while online.”
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Google has agreed to pay a total of $17 million and to do the following to resolve these allegations, according to the statement from one of the state attorney generals handling the case:
Not deploy the type of code used to override a browser’s cookie blocking settings without the consumer’s consent unless it is necessary to do so in order to detect, prevent or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues;
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Not misrepresent or omit material information to consumers about how they can use any particular Google product, service, or tool to directly manage how Google serves advertisements to their browsers;
Improve the information it provides to consumers regarding cookies, their purposes, and how they can be managed by consumers using Google’s products or services and tools;
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