Last week, it came out that Google has been bypassing privacy settings in Safari, and installing cookies to track the browsing habits of millions of users who didn’t know about the tracking. Now Google is being sued and could be on the hook for millions.
Businessweek reports that a class-action complaint has been filed against Google in US District Court. The complaint alleges that the company wilfully violated the Federal Wiretap Act. The legislation explicitly prohibits companies from monitoring communications without permission. If Google is found guilty, it’s guilty millions of times over. In previous statements the company has said that the offending cookies were being used by accident and disabled the code that installed them in Safari. So far, Google hasn’t commented on the suit itself.
This situation just keeps getting worse and worse for Google. In addition to the class-action suit, a complaint has also been filed with the FTC, and just yesterday, Microsoft claimed that Google also bypassed privacy settings in Microsoft Internet Explorer. [Businessweek via Ars Technica]