Google pays executives $15m in bonuses

Internet search giant Google is paying nearly $15m (£10.1m) in bonuses to four of its top executives for their performances last year.

Neither of Google's two co-founders, including chief executive Larry Page, will get a bonus though.

Executive chairman and former boss Eric Schmidt will get $6m - the largest reward.

The rest of the money will go to its top lawyer, chief financial officer and chief business officer.

Lawyer David Drummond is getting $3m, while Patrick Pichette and Nikesh Arora are to receive $2.8m each, the company said in regulatory filings.

Mr Page and co-founder Sergey Brin have usually settled for a $1 salary since Google went public in 2004 - but through their stock are worth billions.

It comes on the same day it agreed to pay a $7m fine in the US for collecting people's personal data without authorisation as part of its Street View service.

As well as agreeing to delete all the harvested data, Google has also been required to launch an employee training program about privacy and data use which it must continue for at least ten years.

It must also launch a public service advertising campaign to education consumers about how to secure their information on wireless networks.

In January, Google said its net profit for the final three months of last year was $2.89bn, up 7% on a year earlier. Revenues were up by more than a third at $14.4bn.