2/16/2012

Google develops code to bypass Apple's privacy safeguards

This is "do no evil"? Google develops code so that it can track "the Web-browsing habits of people who intended for that kind of monitoring to be blocked." That isn't wrong? Apparently one lesson is to stay away from the New York Times website. From the WSJ:

The Google code was spotted by Stanford researcher Jonathan Mayer and independently confirmed by a technical adviser to the Journal, Ashkan Soltani, who found that ads on 22 of the top 100 websites installed the Google tracking code on a test computer, and ads on 23 sites installed it on an iPhone browser.

The technique reaches far beyond those websites, however, because once the coding was activated, it could enable Google tracking across the vast majority of websites. Three other online-ad companies were found using similar techniques: Vibrant Media Inc., WPP PLC's Media Innovation Group LLC and Gannett Co.'s PointRoll Inc.

In Google's case, the findings appeared to contradict some of Google's own instructions to Safari users on how to avoid tracking. Until recently, one Google site told Safari users they could rely on Safari's privacy settings to prevent tracking by Google. Google removed that language from the site Tuesday night. . . .


UPDATE: Amazing, Google apparently did the same thing to Microsoft.

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