Google: IE Privacy Policy Is Impractical

itwbennett writes "In response to Microsoft's claim that Google circumvented Internet Explorer privacy protections (following the discovery that Google also worked around Safari's privacy settings), Google on Monday said that IE's privacy protection, called P3P, is impractical to comply with."

Comments

Old and Busted

[uigrad_2000]

P3P has been Old and Busted since Slashdot first covered it in 2002.

Microsoft would never bring it up, if they weren't already in panic mode. This seems to indicate that MS is in far worse shape than we know.

Not impractical, ridiculous!

[sugarmotor]

I think Google is being polite, as do people who quote a "lack of value"

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P3P

The main content of a privacy policy is the following:

        which information the server stores:
                which kind of information is collected (identifying or not);
                which particular information is collected (IP address, email address, name, etc.);

Kind of information??? As if the AI problems were all solved. IP Address? Of course it is collected. Email address? Yes if there is an input box that says email address then the address is collected.

Impractical to Microsoft, MS also send invalid P3P

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it interesting that Microsoft also sends an invalid privacy header, just as they are complaining about Google doing.
I also find it interesting that MS is blaming Google for IE's failed handling on invalid P3P headers rather than fixing their product.

Re:Impractical to who?

[egamma]

"but the data they use to do so never leaves their own servers."

I guess you believe everything you hear/read....

Why would the data leave their servers? They don't need to sell the information to advertisers--they simply tell advertisers, "We know everything about everyone. We will put your ad in front of the 1 million people most likely to respond. You don't need us to sell their information to you--they will provide it when they buy your product."

Re:Impractical to who?

[Col. Klink (retired)]

Wait, you're cheering for the company that told google (and some 11,000 other websites) how to work around their broken P3P implementation?

The 2010 research paper "discovered that Microsoft's support website recommends the use of invalid CPs (codes) as a work-around for a problem in IE." This recommendation was a major reason that many of the 11,176 websites provided different code to the one requested by Microsoft.