FTC takes to Twitter to explain $22.5M fine against Google

The Federal Trade Commission took to social media to answer question about the $22.5 million fine it slapped against Google this morning for allegedly tracking people using Apple's Safari browser even though Safari tells users it blocks cookies by default.

The fine, while tiny for Google, amounts to the largest penalty ever for the violation of an FTC order. Read the details here.

While FTC representatives also took to Twitter and Facebook, the action took place on Twitter. The answers, however, were far from enlightening. The FTC reps sounded like they were tweeting from talking points -- should that be "tweeting points"? -- which was probably the case.

When asked how "can msg sent be 'clear' when there's no admission of liability or explanation of violation or fine?" an FTC rep tweeted: "What's impt is actions not words; $22.5M is loud."

Another: "What impact do you hope the settlement will have on Web industry?
Answer from @FTC: "We want eb industry to abide by the promises it makes to consumers."

One participant, @Swiftstories, asked for specifics: "How many Safari users affected by Google modifications and how was that used to compute $22.5M fine." To which @FTC said: "Hard to know exactly. Est 190M Safari users worldwide but not all saw Google's (missteps. Penalty = many factors in case law."

And on it went. @caseyoppenheim asked if there was "an analysis of how much Google profited form the violation?" The answer:

And another: