Google is in hot water again over its privacy policies -- or lack thereof. And the upshot could affect the company's cloud services.
Just a few weeks after explaining its privacy policy to Congress (you know, the one in which Google simplified its various privacy policies to streamline its own access to user data), the search giant has been confronted with a new crisis: Today's Wall Street Journal revealed that Google has been bypassing the privacy restrictions of Apple's Safari browser with software that enables users' tracking histories to be monitored for advertising purposes.
Three other online advertising entities -- Vibrant Media Inc., WPP PLC's Media Innovation Group LLC, and Gannett Co.'s PointRoll Inc. -- were also named alongside Google as using the same technique. The workaround is credited to a young Web developer in India named Anant Garg, who created it a couple of years ago.
The technique Google and the three other companies are using was revealed by a Stanford University graduate student Jonathan Mayer in a paper detailing how Google code manages to bypass the default blocking of third-party cookies that's built into Safari. Mayer's paper includes the following chilling conclusions:
When Apple's developers implemented Safari's cookie blocking feature, they were balancing several conflicting design priorities. But one decision was clear: it should prevent advertising companies from tracking the user...
Four advertising companies circumvented Apple's protection. Some privacy researchers and advocates have characterized the interplay between third-party web trackers and browser privacy measures as a "cat and mouse game" or "arms race." This research result regrettably affirms that view as reality—for, quite possibly, millions of users.
Reaction to today's news was swift. By midday Friday, the public research group, Electronic Privacy Information Center
(EPIC), had filed a lawsuit requesting that the US Federal Trade Commission enforce a consent order that agency issued in October 2011 that, according to EPIC, "bars Google from misrepresenting the company's privacy practices, requires the company to obtain users' consent before disclosing personal data, and requires the company to develop and comply with a comprehensive privacy program."
Google says it is innocent of wrongdoing. In a statement, Rachel Whetstone, SVP of communications and public policy at Google, asserted:
The Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why. We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled. It’s important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.
Unlike other major browsers, Apple's Safari browser blocks third-party cookies by default. However, Safari enables many web features for its users that rely on third parties and third-party cookies, such as "Like" buttons. Last year, we began using this functionality to enable features for signed-in Google users on Safari who had opted to see personalized ads and other content -- such as the ability to "+1" things that interest them.
To enable these features, we created a temporary communication link between Safari browsers and Google's servers, so that we could ascertain whether Safari users were also signed into Google, and had opted for this type of personalization. But we designed this so that the information passing between the user’s Safari browser and Google’s servers was anonymous--effectively creating a barrier between their personal information and the web content they browse.
However, the Safari browser contained functionality that then enabled other Google advertising cookies to be set on the browser. We didn’t anticipate that this would happen, and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers. It’s important to stress that, just as on other browsers, these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.
The statement may or may not satisfy the millions of users whose privacy settings were bypassed. It also may not pass muster with the FTC and various watchdog groups.
All of which raises questions about how reliant Google has been on the privacy data it obtained this way, and what the potential impact of not using it might have on its services.
One thing is clear, though: Google has a heck of a fight on its hands this time.
Quite right, and it's important that we (or the FTC, on our behalf) take out of Google's (and Facebook's) hands the decision about whether users' wishes should be respected.
Kim Davis - Agreed. This violation by Google, as with the WiFi eavesdropping not too long ago, are clear-cut privacy violations. It's a case of Google breaking in on communications which the user intended to be private.
You might be right about privacy advocates, Mitch, but the breach which matters here is the breach of a consent decree agreed with the FTC. It's too late to worry about whether the consent decree reflects genuine concerns: it governs what Google can do.
With the finalization of its settlement with the FTC on privacy today, Facebook faces similar constraints going forward.
I don't know if Google violates privacy so much as people havig different definitions of privacy. Certainly the lack of public outcry indicates that privacy advocates might have a minority opinion.
Well, I wonder, Mitch. Google violates privacy over and over and no one seems to really care. At least, they're not voting against Google with their wallets.
I tend to look at it from who has the most to lose from conducting nefarious/Invasion of Personal Privacy activities.
If Opera conducts Spying on its users (without informing them first);then Opera will not have a Market.Opera may not even exist as an independent company then.
Its that small.
On the other hand,We have Google,which has a track record of ripping off User Privacy at every stage of the Technology cycle(including what they did with Safari)-How much of a difference is it going to make to them if their Browser sinks because of Bad Company practices(especially on the USer privacy front)???
Hardly anything.
So I feel Opera will work harder to safeguard their consumers than Google ever will.
So try it out.
Let me know how it works for you.
Yes,I know IE9 is pretty good.Microsoft has done a very good job(finally) on improving their Browser).But you want to keep trying Alternatives too(so that Microsoft does not lag behind the competition again)-
After all the Market is always the last Judge,Jury and Executioner of any product.
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