Google accused of tracking Apple users

[Simon]

Google has been accused of deliberately circumventing privacy features in Apple's Safari browser to track users.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Google figured out a way to track users in the mobile and desktop versions of Safari, despite the Apple browser having built-in protections against certain cookies being dropped on user's computers.

While Safari allows cookies from sites that users actually visit, it blocks third-party tracking cookies. However, Google found a way to slip in a cookie by fooling the browser into thinking that the user was interacting with the ad by submitting an "invisible" form, the report claimed.

The code that Google used allowed its "+1" sharing system, part of its social network, to be embedded in ads in the DoubleClick advertising network, which is owned by Google. If the user was logged into Google+, the cookie would be used to display a "+1" button on the ads; it they weren't logged in, the cookie would be blank and nothing would happen. The cookies were deleted within 24 hours.

However, Google's technique essentially broke Safari's privacy controls, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Read more: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/372850/google-accused-of-tracking-apple-users

[zappaDPJ]

This has been quite a popular topic on a lot of forums I visit. I'm still trying to work out the implications.

[Lance]

Where there is a will, Google has got a way...

[Bill]

I'm still trying to work out the implications.

That Google aren't to be trusted as far as you could throw their head office...?

Nothing new there, then.

[Tacitus]

One thing that does amuse me about all this is that loads of people are piling on Apple for being control freaks, but totally ignore what Google is doing under the radar.  Apple is at least upfront about it - well more or less - and you can either take it or leave it.  I suspect that with the release of Mountain Lion, a fair number will leave it, although where they'll go when MS do pretty much the same thing in order 'to improve your internet experience' is an open question.