Google to pay $17m to state attorneys general over Safari cookie drops

The search giant last year agreed to pay $22.5m to the Federal Trade Commission to settle charges in relation to the same allegations.

Google was named in a February 2012 report by Stanford University grad student Jonathan Mayer, which showed how the use of certain coding in advertisements could get around Safari’s default block on third-party cookies. Vibrant Media, the Media Innovation Group, PointRoll and WPP were also named in Mayer’s research, and in a subsequent class action lawsuit, which was filed in December 2012 by a group of consumers.

Plaintiffs settled with PointRoll on 23 July 2013. However, in October a federal judge dismissed the complaint against the remaining companies, saying plaintiffs had failed to show they had been harmed by the alleged actions.

The consumer group is appealing that decision.