First appeared in USA Today
Mudslinging between tech rivals is nothing new. But the red
hot issue of online privacy has pushed it to another level.
Last week, Google scrambled to deflect criticism that it
tracked the online activities of users' of Apple's Safari Web browser against
their wishes, by circumventing an anti-tracking mechanism.
Tuesday, Google lashed out at Microsoft in response to
allegations that the search giant has been doing much the same to users of
Windows Internet Explorer browser. Google and Facebook are under pressure from
Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to disclose more about their tracking
techniques.
Ironically, this latest tempest, stirred up by Microsoft,
could widen the spotlight and invite scrutiny of Microsoft's own tracking
practices, and those of Apple, Twitter, Amazon and thousands of Web companies
in the hunt for online advertising revenue, says Al Hilwa, software
applications analyst at IDC. "The Web industry has gravitated towards
advertising as the primary source of income, and (tracking) data is the fuel
the industry runs on," Hilwa says.
In a blog posting on Monday, Microsoft corporate vice
president Dean Hachamovitch accused Google of issuing tracking mechanisms
designed to bypass technology called P3P. Internet Explorer uses P3P to screen
the privacy policies of any entity engaged in online tracking — to determine if
they're up to snuff.
Google senior vice president Rachel Whetstone responded by
blasting P3P as "largely non-operational." As proof, she pointed to a
2010 Carnegie Mellon research report finding 11,000 websites that routinely
bypass P3P.
The professor who ran that study, Lorrie Faith Cranor, says
many website operators bypass P3P by mistake, while others do it on purpose to
circumvent Microsoft's attempt at grading their privacy policies.
Google and Facebook, Cranor says, are in the latter group.
Each uses tracking mechanisms that bypass P3P so that popular features, such
Facebook's "Like" button and Google Gmail logon services, work.
Whetstone contends that channeling tracking mechanisms
through P3P makes little sense. "It is impractical to comply with
Microsoft's request while providing modern Web functionality," she says.
Hachamovitch, meanwhile, insists that Google should
"commit to honoring P3P." Yet, the Carnegie Mellon study found even
some Microsoft websites bypass P3P, as do sites from Godaddy, Hulu and Amazon.
"My students and I discovered that Google, Facebook and thousands of
others essentially have bogus privacy policies," Cranor says.
