Google to pay $17M fine in smartphone privacy breach

>Google Inc will pay $17 million US to settle allegations in 37 states and the District of Colombia that it secretly tracked web users by placing special digital files on the web browsers of their smartphones.

>The Safari web browser used on iPhones and iPads automatically blocks third-party cookies, but Google altered the computer code of its cookies and was able to circumvent the blocks between June 2011 and February 2012, according to the states' allegations.