Daily Mail Article –
Google and Facebook may have used a computer ‘trick’ that allows them to monitor web browsing via Apple’s Safari browser to build up advertising ‘profiles’ – circumventing Apple’s safety measures. The search giant bypassed privacy settings built into Apple’s Safari web browser on iPhones, PCs and Macs, according to a recent report. Other advertising companies, and Facebook, reportedly used a similar method. Safari is the most popular mobile web browser, used in all models of Apple’s iPhone and iPad. Google allegedly circumvented the protection to build up profiles of web users, using a ‘cookie’ that collected advertising information. The move has caused outcry among privacy advocates. It comes shortly after EU privacy groups wrote to the search giant to ask it to ‘halt’ a new privacy policy that would allow it to ‘share’ customer data between services such as Search, Gmail and YouTube. Google allegedly used a ‘trick’ which sends a blank message to the browser to make it accept unauthorised ‘cookies’. Apple says it is ‘working to put a stop’ to the practice. The code was uncovered by a Stanford University researcher Jonathan Mayer and was reported in the Wall Street Journal. Google has since disabled the code, and claims that the report is in error, and that its cookies only collected anonymous information. The revelation caused outcry among online privacy advocates.
San Francisco’s Electronic Frontier Foundation says, ‘Coming on the heels of Google’s controversial decision to tear down the privacy-protective walls between some of its other services, this is bad news for the company.
By ROB WAUGH
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