Google Inc. is under fire once again after allegations that it circumvented privacy protections built into the iPhone in order to track what users are doing online.

A privacy researcher at Stanford University said Friday that the Internet search giant had made an end run around a privacy feature in Apple Inc.’s Safari browser, the default Web-surfing software for tens of millions of iPhone, iPad and Macintosh users.

Google spokeswoman Christine Chen said the company did not intentionally place advertising cookies on Safari users’ devices.

“We didn’t anticipate that this would happen, and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers,” she said. “It’s important to stress that, just as on other browsers, these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.”