Politics & Government

Google to Pay State of Maryland $1 Million in Breach of Privacy Case

Officials with Google said that while the search engine went around privacy settings, no personal information was collected.

Internet search giant Google will pay the Maryland state government$1 million as part of a $17 million, 37-state settlement for collecting information on consumers' Internet browsing activity without their consent, reports the Baltimore Sun.

The data was gathered from iPhoneand iPad users despite a privacy setting on the devices' Safari browser preventing the use of "cookies," small files that track browsing activity, the newspaper said. Google's advertising network circumvented the policy from June 1, 2011, through Feb. 15, 2012.

Maryland helped lead the investigation resulting in the settlement, according to the Sun, which also requires Google to stop using the type of code that overrides users' privacy settings.

Google officials said they have made changes to their advertising technology and removed the ad cookies, which collected no personal information.

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The settlement money will go to the state's general fund in the form of a civil penalty, and will not be passed along to consumers whose browsing information may have been tracked, the Sun said.


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