After Apple discovered that Google was monitoring users' mobile Web browsing habits by circumventing privacy settings, Microsoft came forward and said the company was doing the same for its browsing software.
Microsoft accused Google of going around privacy settings in its Internet Explorer browser, but privacy experts say this is a result of a programming loophole in IE, according to a report from the
Wall Street Journal. IE uses a computer protocol known as the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) to allow or not allow websites to share privacy policies with the browser itself instead of forcing users to read through each site's policy.
But if a company doesn't set its P3P in the right format, it can still use the tracking cookies P3P is supposed to prevent, the report said. Google's P3P policy falls into the "wrong format" category, and has been known to security experts for some time. Some experts say Microsoft is at fault for allowing this loophole to remain open.
Eduard Goodman, chief privacy officer for
Identity Theft 911, has a blog about the ways consumers can better protect their sensitive data online.
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