Topic: Google accused of tracking Apple users

[Simon]

Google has been accused of deliberately circumventing privacy features in Apple's Safari browser to track users.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Google figured out a way to track users in the mobile and desktop versions of Safari, despite the Apple browser having built-in protections against certain cookies being dropped on user's computers.

While Safari allows cookies from sites that users actually visit, it blocks third-party tracking cookies. However, Google found a way to slip in a cookie by fooling the browser into thinking that the user was interacting with the ad by submitting an "invisible" form, the report claimed.

The code that Google used allowed its "+1" sharing system, part of its social network, to be embedded in ads in the DoubleClick advertising network, which is owned by Google. If the user was logged into Google+, the cookie would be used to display a "+1" button on the ads; it they weren't logged in, the cookie would be blank and nothing would happen. The cookies were deleted within 24 hours.

However, Google's technique essentially broke Safari's privacy controls, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Read more: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/372850/google-accused-of-tracking-apple-users

[sam]

In some respects isn't this a flaw in the security of Safari? Cause surely if Google can do this then so can many.

[Simon]

Oh, I've no doubt they could.  It's just that Google did. 

[sam]

they are smart

[Simon]