Google and Other Ads Companies Have Been Spying Safari Users for Years, 17/02/2012 - Your reactions

[linathael]

This might be a huge scandal, and will for sure hit Google and the other involved advertising companies, or at least confidence placed in such companies, especially considering that Google has been running recently a campaign to re-ensure users that our privacy is preserved when using their solutions...


Several independent and Stanford University researchers have identified a code used by Google, and inserted into Apple web browser Safari. The code was making it possible to bypass privacy settings of millions users, not only those running Safari on Mac/Mac OS X, but also the huge amount of iPhone owners. With such hidden malicious code Google and Ads companies have had access to the web browsing habits and history of users. The code was even able to monitor habits of several users using the same computer. While people might have thought their privacy settings were high and not challenged, Google code has been using Safari as a Trojan to spy our web browsing habits.


When contacted by the Wall Street journal, Google representative indicated that the code was disabled, but it remains still unclear which companies benefited from such hacking of Safari, and would have been adding back door in the application and Mac OS X? In addition, Apple did not reacted so far, and it will be interesting to know what would then be their official statement, considering that Google have been using the Apple products to spy users and generate very valuable dataset for ads companies.


 
By linathael