Google has been fined £14.4m for secretly tracking Apple's Safari web browser users.

The internet search giant broke privacy rules by overriding safeguard settings within Safari design to stop monitoring. Google has agreed to pay the $22.5m to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) which described it as a record sum for a violation.

"No matter how big or small, all companies must abide by FTC orders against them and keep their privacy promises to consumers, or they will end up paying many times what it would have cost to comply in the first place," said FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz.

You may be gasping in shock at the seemingly huge amount of money which Google had been fined. However, as The Register points out, Google rakes in over $20m roughly every five hours.

"The record setting penalty in this matter sends a clear message to all companies under an FTC privacy order." added Leibowitz.As well as the fine, Google was ordered to disable all the tracking cookies it said it would place on users' PCs.

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