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Court approves FTC's $22.5 million penalty for Google over Safari cookies

The FTC might not have been impressed with Google bypassing Safari cookie settings in the name of +1 functionality, but it'll at least be satisfied with the outcome. A Northern District of California federal court has approved the FTC's proposed settlement, which sees Google pay a $22.5 million penalty in addition to altering its cookie behavior to respect privacy in Apple's browser. The fiscal punishment is a drop in the bucket for a company that might well make up that loss by the time you're done reading this; all the same, we'll take it if other web companies are more mindful of their behavior in the future.