United States v. Google Inc. | |
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Court | United States District Court for the Northern District of California |
Full case name | United States v. Google Inc. |
Decided | November 16, 2012 |
Docket nos. | 3:12-cv-04177 |
Court membership | |
Judge sitting | Susan Yvonne Illston |
United States v. Google Inc., No. 3:12-cv-04177 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 16, 2012), is a case in which the United States District Court for the Northern District of California approved a stipulated order for a permanent injunction and a $22.5 million civil penalty judgment, the largest civil penalty the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ever won in history.[1] The FTC and Google Inc. consented to the entry of the stipulated order to resolve the dispute which arose from Google's violation of its privacy policy. In this case, the FTC found Google liable for misrepresenting "privacy assurances to users of Apple's Safari Internet browser".[2] It was reached after the FTC considered that through the placement of advertising tracking cookies in the Safari web browser, and while serving targeted advertisements, Google violated the 2011 FTC's administrative order issued in FTC v. Google Inc.[3]