From the article:

> The complaint is that for several months in 2011 and 2012 Google placed ad-tracking cookies on the devices of Safari users which is set by default to block such cookies.

Seems they used cookies for tracking despite Safari supposedly disabling those kind of cookies.

How were they able to set tracking cookies, if the browser had them disabled?

With a technical workaround. The thing is, when does improving browser compatibility count as hacking? Most major websites "hacked" IE with a fake P3P header. This is not that different.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8048306/what-is-the-most...

http://alexanderhiggins.com/google-fined-22-5m-for-hacking-s...

I see it this way; in the US, if a content publisher chooses to apply DRM, this provides them additional legal protections - whether the DRM is broken or not. Even if stripping DRM is "click Next" simple, it's still illegal.

Here, we're applying similar benefit to the consumer. The consumer has expressed they do not wish to be tracked. The application of a loophole does not make it okay.

Is it a little over-reaching? Possibly. But it's about time things were over-reaching in the consumer's benefit, rather than the corporations'.

By your definition here a buffer overflow exploit is a "technical workaround". >.>

I remember commenting long long ago about how the fake P3P header thing will get people in trouble one day. Not sure that one has happened yet though.

The way I read this is that so called "supercookies" are illegal? That would be great.