Google fined over Safari cookie privacy row

The firm agreed to pay $22.5m (£14.4m) after monitoring web surfers using Apple's Safari browser who had a "do not track" privacy setting selected.

Google does not have to admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
The penalty is for misrepresenting what it was doing and not for the methods it used to bypass Safari's tracker cookie settings.

Cookies are small text files that are installed onto a computer to allow it to be identified so that a user's web activity can be monitored.
"No matter how big or small, all companies must abide by FTC orders against them and keep their privacy promises to consumers, or they will end up paying many times what it would have cost to comply in the first place," FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement.