Google hits back at privacy claims

LONDON (ShareCast) - Online advertising giant Google (NasdaqGS: GOOG - news) has hit back at claims in the Wall Street Journal that it has, along with other advertising companies, been bypassing the privacy settings of millions of people using Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - news) 's Safari Web-browsing software. According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the advertising companies had apparently found special computer code that tricks Apple's Safari (Other OTC: SFRI.PK - news) software into letting them monitor many users whereas Google maintains that it was only using known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had themselves enabled. Google disabled its code after being contacted by The Wall Street Journal, the US financial daily claimed. Google's Senior Vice President of Communications and Public policy, Rachel Whetstone, claimed that the WSJ's report "mischaracterises what happened and why." "It's important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information," Whetstone maintains. A cookie is a piece of computer code stored on a user's computer which typically transmits information back and forth between the computer and the web site (or third party applications on the web page, such as advertising servers), and can be used to track browsing behaviour. "Unlike other major browsers, Apple's Safari browser blocks third-party cookies by default," Whetstone explained. "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 personalised ads and other content - such as the ability to '+1' things that interest them," Whetstone continued. Google admits that to enable these features, it created a temporary communication link between Safari browsers and Google's servers, so that it could ascertain whether Safari users were also signed into Google, and had opted for this type of personalisation. The company stresses, however, that all information passing between the user's Safari browser and Google's servers was anonymous. Google does admit, though, that an unexpected by-product of Google account users choosing to see personalised ads was that it enabled other Google advertising cookies to be set on the Safari browser. "We didn't anticipate that this would happen, and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers," Whetstone explained. "Users of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome were not affected. Nor were users of any browser (including Safari) who have opted out of our interest-based advertising program using Google's Ads Preferences Manager," the statement from Whetstone concluded.