Judge Susan Illston has indicated she will accept the terms of a settlement deal between Google and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, in which Google will pay an US$22.5 million fine for circumventing privacy protections in Apple’s Safari browser, reports the “IDG News Service” (http://macte.ch/xpNhN).

The judge’s decision is a setback for the Consumer Watchdog advocay group, which had been pushing for tougher sanctions, including a higher fine. However, the group told the “IDG News Service” that it had achieved its goal of drawing attention to what it sees as the ineffectiveness of such settlements.

In its complaint, the FTC charged that for several months in 2011 and 2012, Google placed a certain advertising tracking cookie on the computers of Safari users who visited sites within Google’s DoubleClick advertising network, although Google had previously told these users they would automatically be opted out of such tracking, as a result of the default settings of the Safari browser used in Macs, iPhones and iPads.