Google has been accused of getting around privacy protections in Apple's Safari browser, tracking users' behaviour without telling them, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Safari is designed to block such tracking by default, but specially-crafted cookies allowed Google to watch over user activity, the report claimed.
That code was found by Stanford researcher Jonathan Mayer, but it was technical adviser to the WSJ Ashkan Soltani who found that ads on 22 of the top 100 websites ran code on a test computer. Ads on 23 of those sites installed the cookies on a Safari browser on an iPhone.
We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled.
Google has now disabled to code after being contacted by the WSJ. The company claimed the paper had "mischaracterised 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," an official statement read.
Microsoft jumped on the report, claiming it was "not new."
"The novelty here is that Google apparently circumvented the privacy protections built into Apple's Safari browser in a deliberate, and ultimately, successful fashion," a blog post from the company's Ryan Galvin read.
Galvin went on to boast about the protections Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 offered.
Other major Web 2.0 companies have come under fire for their privacy practices this month. Twitter admitted it was hoarding iPhone users' contact details earlier this week.
Read on for a comment piece asking is there anyone who we can trust online now?
-
Cleo attack victim list grows as Hertz confirms customer data stolenNews Hertz has confirmed it suffered a data breach as a result of the Cleo zero-day vulnerability in late 2024, with the car rental giant warning that customer data was stolen.
-
Lateral moves in tech: Why leaders should support employee mobilityIn-depth Encouraging staff to switch roles can have long-term benefits for skills in the tech sector
-
Capita tells pension provider to 'assume' nearly 500,000 customers' data stolenCapita told the pension provider to “work on the assumption” that data had been stolen
-
Gumtree site code made personal data of users and sellers publicly accessibleNews Anyone could scan the website's HTML code to reveal personal information belonging to users of the popular second-hand classified adverts website
-
Pizza chain exposed 100,000 employees' Social Security numbersNews Former and current staff at California Pizza Kitchen potentially burned by hackers
-
83% of critical infrastructure companies have experienced breaches in the last three yearsNews Survey finds security practices are weak if not non-existent in critical firms
-
Identity Automation launches credential breach monitoring serviceNews New monitoring solution adds to the firm’s flagship RapidIdentity platform
-
Neiman Marcus data breach hits 4.6 million customersNews The breach took place last year, but details have only now come to light
-
Indiana notifies 750,000 after COVID-19 tracing data accessedNews The state is following up to ensure no information was transferred to bad actors
-
Pearson fined $1 million for downplaying severity of 2018 breachNews The SEC found the London-based firm made “misleading statements and omissions” about the intrusion
