Google will be required to pay a civil penalty of $22.5m to settle charges for bypassing the privacy settings of Apple users who use the Safari browser, according to US regulators.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating into the privacy infringement and has approved a consent decree that will enable Google to settle the issue, reports Reuters.
FTC will officially announce this within days, according to sources familiar to the matter.
Google was allegedly using computer code known as "cookies" to trick Apple’s Safari browser into monitoring users who had blocked such tracking, the news agency said.
Google, however, said the tracking was done inadvertently and claimed not to have been collected personal information like names, addresses or credit card data.
According to Google, a 2009 help centre web page that predated a change in cookie-handling policy by Apple prompted the FTC investigation on the Safari browser matter.
The search giant continued its tracking despite assurances that Safari could be set to protect privacy of users, which prompted a probe by FTC into a potential violation of a consent decree signed by Google in 2011.
The European Union is investigating whether Google complies with stricter privacy laws in Europe.
The FTC and European regulators is also investigating Google’s role in a wide-ranging antitrust issues and over accusations that the search engine manipulated search results to favour its own products.
A Google spokeswoman was quoted by Reuters as saying: "We have now changed that page and taken steps to remove the ad cookies, which collected no personal information, from Apple’s browsers."
