Google got into trouble with Twitter and other technology giants, after the search giant announced the launch of new social features on its search engine that displays posts on Google+ and its other online services. Now, Google has been caught indulging in yet another evil act, infuriating those who already feel that the company has been adopting unfair means to dominate the web.
A recent report from the Wall Street Journal states that Google and several other advertising companies have been bypassing the security settings of millions of iPhone users to monitor their web-browsing habits- even those who want this kind of monitoring to be blocked.
“The companies used special computer code that tricks Apple’s Safari Web-browsing software into letting them monitor many users. Safari, the most widely used browser on mobile devices, is designed to block such tracking by default,” the WSJ states.
The Google code was first spotted by Stanford researcher Jonathan Mayer and confirmed by Ashkan Soltani, a technical adviser to the Journal. Google disabled this code immediately after being contacted by The Wall Street Journal.
In a statement, Google said: “The Journal mischaracterizes 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.”
“We are working to put a stop to the circumvention of Safari privacy settings,” an Apple official added.
Apart from Google three other online-ad companies -Vibrant Media Inc., WPP PLC’s Media Innovation Group LLC and Gannett Co.’s PointRoll Inc were also found using similar techniques.
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