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“Industry Leading” Browser Privacy Shot Down by Microsoft Internally

Posted on 02. Aug, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey in Features, News

The Wall Street Journal reported today that during the development phase of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer8 in 2008 there were privacy features added to the browser that would have been superior to those that we see on the market today. During a study conducted by the Journal, fifty of the top websites in the world were tested for their installation of tracking technology, and the results were not very good, with all of them installing some sort of way to track users.

Back in 2008, which was incidentally the same year that Google released its Chrome browser, there was an internal debate within Microsoft whether or not to allow users the ability to be prompted for privacy settings during start-up of the browser. As we all know now, that simply is not the case with IE, which is used by most people on the web nor is it with most other browsers on the market today.

I’m conflicted on what this means for all of us. Sure, browsers are free for us to use, but in return for the convenience we are being tracked all over the web no matter what we do. This information is used by companies like Google to be able to target ads towards us. The most concerning is the fact that most people don’t know how much data is being mined for information on their browsing habits and other possibly personal information.

This is going to be problematic as the web pervades our lives into smartphones, internet-enabled devices and cloud computing devices. What is the remedy for this ever-growing problem? Is it any surprise that the FTC today is suggesting a “do not track” list for the internet?

Tags: ad targeting, browser Privacy, cloud computing privacy, do not track list internet, FTC, FTC do not track list, Internet Explorer 8 privacy settings, privacy settings, smartphone privacy, tracking technology, tracking technology in browsers