The deal, details of which were reported last week, ends a nearly three-year investigation. Google, the world's largest Internet search engine, has said the incident was a mistake owing to a piece of experimental computer code included in the cars' software. It said the data was not used in any Google services.
Google agreed in Tuesday's deal to eventually destroy the data collected in the United States. It is working with various European countries to determine how to handle the data it collected there. Google did not acknowledge violating any U.S. laws in the so-called assurance of voluntary compliance that it entered into with the states.
The $7 million fine, which will be split among the states involved in the investigation, represents a tiny fraction of Google's roughly $50.2 billion in 2012 revenue and its $10.7 billion in net income.
Marc Rotenberg, of the non-profit privacy advocacy group the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said that the fine represents the largest in U.S. history by state Attorneys General for violations of Internet privacy.
Still, the settlement was met by criticism in some quarters. "With revenue of $100 million a day, the fine just a drop in the bucket and not enough to deter bad behavior," Steve Pociask, the president of the non-profit American Consumer Institute, said in a statement emailed to reporters.
Under terms of the deal, Google will implement an employee education program about user privacy and sponsor a nationwide public service campaign about protecting information on wireless networks.
Source: Reuters
