Google reportedly breached the privacy of millions of Apple Safari users by fooling the web browser into accepting tracking cookies it normally wouldn't take. Google, however, says this is an unhappy accident and that Google never intended to track its users in this manner.
Unhappy Accident. Interesting excuse.
It's a classic case of he said, she said. Here's what's going on.
Apple's Safari is more aggressive by default than many browsers about blocking cookies that do not originate from the site you're visiting, such as cookies served by online advertising firms. These are referred to as third-party cookies and are used by most online advertising companies and common on major websites. Google got around Safari's privacy restrictions by exploiting a loophole that allowed the search giant to install a temporary cookie if a user clicked a +1 button embedded in online advertising, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
All you need to know is that a cookie is a piece of information they're storing on your computer for the purposes of them making a buck by showing you ads. And that they're doing it even though you've explicitly said "don't do that" (by way of setting your browser not to accept such cookies)
The trick, according to the Journal's report, involves sticking a hidden web form inside an online ad with a +1 button, similar to Facebook "likes," on it. If the user clicks on the +1 button, the web form tells Safari that the user filled out the phony form when in fact she or he had not, which allowed Google to install the cookie.
So what you're saying is that , by unhappy accident, you paid a team of programmers to circumvent the security restrictions of the safari browser so you could make money. That's , um , quite the accident. How does one "accidentally" order some engineers to hack a browser anyways ?
When a user appears to have explicitly interacted with content on a Website, Safari allows the site to install temporary cookies that are supposed to expire after 12 to 24 hours. As a result of this workaround, Google could then catalog a user's browsing habits for its DoubleClick advertising business,
And thus accidently get paid for this unhappy accident.
For its part, Google says it wasn't tracking people on purpose and only wanted to ascertain when a user was logged into a Google account. "We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled," says Rachel Whetstone, Google's senior vice president of communications and public policy, in a statement to PCWorld. If you were logged in, Google could then deliver personalized advertising and perform other functions, such as sending +1's back to a user's Google+ social networking profile.
Ah yes. Personalized Advertising. That's the part where you do a google search on chocolate chip cookies, and suddenly every ad you see for the next week is trying to sell you cookies. Not just google sites, but half the sites on the internet , because DoubleClick is a very popular advetising firm, and plants ads everywhere.
Google also emphasizes that its advertising cookies do not collect any personal information.
No , technically cookies are a piece of information. Pieces of Information do not collect information of any kind on you. The google servers that use those cookies, however , they blatantly do. I love the wording in that non-denial of a denial.
Google has also deleted language from one of its privacy policy pages that appeared to contradict its tracking practices as detailed by the Journal. Google allows you to install a browser cookie that tells the search giant not to store your browsing habits for online advertising purposes.
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The text on the page used to read: "While we don't have a Safari version of the Google advertising cookie opt-out plugin, Safari is set to block all third-party cookies. If you have not changed those settings, this option effectively accomplishes the same thing as setting the opt-out cookie." Google has since removed that language from its site, but PCWorld was able to find the language in a cached version of the page dated February 14.
And in other, unrelated Unhappy Accidents , all of the statements google made in it's privacy policy promising not to track you and spam you to death with unwanted advertising mysteriously were erased. How Odd.
Installing third-party tracking cookies on your browser is common practice for online advertising companies. Your browsing information is then mined so the sites serve up targeted advertising that, in theory, you are more likely to click on.
It does sound a little goofy and tin hat like to call this sort of thing mind control , doesn't it ? But it is what they are aiming for , even if they're not there yet. Buy my product , not his. Not because my product is better, but because my advertising is better.
Thats not how the world is supposed to work.
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