Microsoft Accuses browser rival of 'stealing privacy'

[Archean]

Microsoft Accuses browser rival of 'stealing privacy'

Microsoft has publicly attacked Google Chrome, accusing its arch web rival of compromising user privacy with the browser's data-gathering address bar.

As Harvard professor and noted Google critic Ben Edelman points out, Omni Box has a way of nudging users towards ads for sites they intended to visit on their own.

When you begin to type a url, Omni Box doesn't just suggest urls. It suggests searches too. If you key in the first few letters of "Expedia.com," the first suggestion is "Search Google for expedia." And if you search Google for Expedia, you get an ad for Expedia.com.

 

[captaincranky]

Oh shoot, M$ has been compromising users privacy for nigh on a decade with um, wait, it's coming to me, ah yes, IE 6 and active X.

Is there anybody that thinks that allowing "Google analytics" to run script in your browser is a good idea? Cause that s***'s just plain rude.

 

[Archean]

I totally agree on the IE6 and active x comment but problem lies in all those lethargic (especially the corporate where people usually think at the speed of a racing snail) users; who has stuck with it, without many good reasons about holding back.

 

[captaincranky]

I've just completely missed the point of Chrome, other than it's an open invitation on the users part, to be inundated with more crap "targeted" advertising from Google. Enough already. I get enough garbage from Amazon, and anybody else that I've even inquired about a product from. M$ is right, Google in general is a massive invasion of privacy. Forget about arguing necessary evil, there's not point, since there's no escape.

Youy can't give me too many script blocking, ad blocking, and privacy options in a browser. And Chrome doesn't seem to offer any of the foregoing.

Any of their applications are installed with "Google updater", which never seems to update anything, it just sits in your prefetch folder, phones home, and sucks up resources. I call that "spyware", the same as "google analytics". So, anybody who chooses to can volunteer for that abuse, I pass.

 

[Archean]

You hit the nail right on its head Captain; that is why I often call our love of everything google is really un-describable, because we keep missing one very important aspect i.e. Google is an massive massive monopoly; lot larger than MS ever was, secondly I honestly don't see much difference in what it is now offering when compared to competition.

The way Chrome works is just one example of expanding its control and monopolistic practices right under the noses of those who are charged to discourage and punish such things from anyone whether its Google or MS etc.