According to the FTC, Google "for several months" in 2011 and 2012 placed tracking cookies on computers of Safari users when they visited sites in Google's DoubleClick ad network. Google had previously assured users that they would be exempt from such tracking and ad targeting because of the default settings in the Safari browser used in Macs, iPhones and iPads that block such cookies, the FTC said.

Instead, Google in many cases actively circumvented Safari's cookie-blocking settings in order to track these users, the FTC said.

The Center for Democracy and Technology praised the FTC's action, highlighting in particular that the agency moved quickly to address the issue and that in its complaint it faulted Google for acting in a way that the FTC said violates the code of conduct of the Network Advertising Initiative, to which Google belongs.

"This action demonstrates the FTC is a champion for consumer privacy rights," said Justin Brookman, CDT's Director of Consumer Privacy, in a statement.

A Google spokeswoman said via email that the FTC "is focused on a 2009 help center page published more than two years before our consent decree, and a year before Apple changed its cookie-handling policy." Google has now changed that page and "taken steps to remove the ad cookies, which collected no personal information, from Apple's browsers," she said.