A Wall Street Journal investigation published Friday drew attention to the issue and set off alarm bells across the Web. In response to the Journal's probe, Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) discontinued its use of the tracking code.
The actual consequences were pretty limited: Google's code was being used only to target ads, and users' personal information was never collected. But it was yet another prominent example of a tech company drawing fire for a slipshod and sneaky way of handling private data.
The Google imbroglio revolves around the company's ad network, which serves advertisements across a wide range of websites.
Sites use files called "cookies" to follow users' movements and log-ins as they travel through the Web. Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) Safari has far stricter tracking restrictions than any other major browser: By default, it blocks third-party cookies. That's a big problem for ad networks, which rely on those cookies to measure their campaigns and to enable some ad functions.... Source/Origin >> Read More
