A lot of people who work hard for their money daily and who have logged into what all the excitement on the Internet is all about want the firms they deal with online to exhibit high ethical standards just like they want from other firms. And so lately it appears there are a lot of considerations of defections away from Google browsing to Bing and Yahoo browsing on home and office PCs among Internet users after word hit the street that Google may not be maintaining the same high standards it insists it maintains.
Peter Pachal has reported for Mashable "Google Caught Tracking Safari Users: What You Need to Know." Pachal writes that "Google is in a lot of hot water over recent revelations about how it tracks user activity on Apple devices — particularly iPhones and iPads." The Wall Street Journal, has reported an independent researcher has discovered that Google embeds hidden software on many websites which has been designed to circumvent the default settings on a web browser to record a user’s behavior.
This issue involves how Safari, which is the default web browser on Apple devices, deals with cookies. Cookies are the little pieces of information, such as a user ID, which a website can leave on your phone, tablet or computer and later retrieve. Cookies make it easy for you to log in to a website such as MSN, and return without needing to log in again. With cookies advertisers can track your behavior. An ad network can serve you ads, based on your clicks by keeping track of what you’re looking at on one website.
A software trick has been being used by Google to get around a Safari setting that only allows certain types of cookies. In this way the company could put cookies on a user’s device, allowing it to track sites visited, which in turn allows Google to tailor advertising to the user. And by default, Safari blocks cookies from third parties.
Interestingly Google operates many of its advertising services, including DoubleClick, from a domain which is outside Google.com and which is a domain which Safari treats as a third party. The company has put a hidden field in some of its sites which essentially has acted as a form, even though the user never filled out anything. This form has told Safari it was alright for DoubleClick to serve ads to the unknowing, unwitting user.
Google insists it’s all an accident. Still, the Safari browser on iPhones and iPads is said to account for more than 50% of mobile browsing and the FTC has acknowledged to Mashable that it was aware of the issue, and that Google is under close watch by the FTC for privacy violations, and this might qualify. Nevertheless, Google says it’s started removing these cookies from Safari browsers. Until Google started removing the cookies, the firm used the information mainly to tailor ads based on the websites you visited.
Concidentally, I personally had an upsetting experience with Google recently. The firm began sending me a flood of offers for free $100 advertising campaigns both via regular mail and to my e-mail addresses online. With catchy lines telling me to try Google advertising I thought I must have had a friend at Google's multi-billion dollar empire who wanted to give me as a little guy on the streets a chance to get my new professional Website around. And so I linked the free $100 advertising offers to several e-mail accounts which I have and began running adds for Dr Harold Mandel Online feeling this was my big chance to move into the big times with the Internet giants with a free expense account which I admittedly can not afford.
Suddenly Google sent me an e-mail yesterday advising me that all of my Google adds had been taken down because I violated terms of service with the firm which says you can only use one free promotional advertising certificate. If that is true it clearly was an accident on my part because the aggressive marketing by Google made it appear to me the firm simply wanted me to use as many free advertising offers as possible. Well, now I am just a little guy on the streets again who isn't running any online adds at this time.
