Google 'faces $22.5m fine for snooping on iPhone and iPad users' (But it will take them just 17 hours to make)

• Google used a special computer code - or 'cookies' - to trick Apple's Safari browser so it could monitor users
• Google said it was 'inadvertent' and has removed it
• Violated FTC agreement to be open about privacy practices

Google will reportedly be fined £14.5million for spying on millions of Apple customers.
The company is at the centre of yet another privacy row, having been accused of bypassing web security settings.
It allegedly tricked Apple’s Safari browser – found on iPhones, iPads and Mac computers – into dropping its automatic privacy safeguards, allowing it to snoop on users across the globe, including those in Britain.

The predicted fine would be the biggest ever levied on a single company by the US Federal Trade Commission. With Google reporting a net income of £1.8billion in the first quarter of this year, it would take the company just over 17 hours to earn enough to pay it off.


The firm, which generates billions from advertising, is still under investigation in the UK after it gathered personal data from homes’ unencrypted wireless networks while collecting information for its Street View maps.
It also signed a legal settlement with US regulators last year pledging not to ‘misrepresent’ its Internet monitoring activities.
Companies such as Google track browsing trends to demonstrate how well their adverts attract users’ attention. However, Safari, the most popular browser on mobile devices, is designed to prevent firms from being able to see people’s preferences and search choices.

It does this by barring the installation of small files, known as cookies – but according to the Wall Street Journal, which revealed the practice earlier this year, Google exploited a loophole that made an exception for adverts that invited interaction, such as those featuring forms to fill out.
The FTC launched the latest probe into Google in February after researcher Jonathan Mayer of Stanford University, California, discovered a hidden code that the firm reportedly used to circumvent Apple’s security settings.

GOOGLE: TRACKING APPLE USERS

When the Wall Street Journal carried out its investigation earlier this year, it found that the tracking system placed by Google's ad network was on scores of the most visited websites on the internet.

The tracking technology was found on websites on Apple computers and iPhones.

Websites included YouTube, aol.com, about.com, whitepages.com, nytimes.com, tmz.com, match.com and merriam-webster.com.

There is no indication that the sites knew of the tracking code.

A subsequent study by the WSJ spotted the code on some of the internet’s most popular sites, including YouTube, which is owned by Google, and that of the New York Times.

There is no indication that sites knew they were hosting the tracking code. Yesterday a spokesman for Google UK insisted the company had not infringed anyone’s privacy.
‘We cannot comment on any specifics,’ he said. ‘However, we do set the highest standards of privacy and security for our users.’
He said the FTC investigation centred on a statement made on a help page from 2009 ‘published more than two years before our consent decree, and a year before Apple changed its cookie-handling policy’.
The WSJ said Google scrapped the system when it was contacted by the newspaper earlier this year.
‘We have now changed that page and taken steps to remove the ad cookies, which collected no personal information, from Apple’s browsers,’ Google’s spokesman added.

Britain’s privacy watchdog reopened its investigation into Google last month, after US regulators revealed that the firm’s Street View cars deliberately collected personal data.

Google initially told the Information Commissioner that downloading data such as phone numbers and passwords had been ‘a simple mistake’.

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