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back to article Watchdogs quiz Google in Safari cookie-stalking probe

Regulators on both sides of the Pond are snapping on the surgical gloves after Google was caught bypassing privacy settings on Safari browsers. People on the inside track have whispered to the Wall Street Journal that the US Federal Trade Commission and France's CNIL are now investigating the search'n'advertising giant over …

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  1. Shane Kent

    And the Canadian Privacy Commissioner will likely.....

    let them walk as she did with street view. I sure would like to know her credentials? Mine are, Shane Kent, Lead Mentor MS's largest Canadian call center group 1996-2001. Did support for Windows and the addons, most notably Internet Explorer. I supported the General Public on a grand scale, what did she do? And I never bought a software engineer screwed up from a company that specializes in data analysis, as how did they not see the extra data? Google "is evil" and should be blocked from doing business in Canada for violating privacy. This is not to say MS is a shining star that never does wrong, but Google is evil that claims do no evil.

    If the Canadian Privacy Commisioner does nothing, I would have to say it is time for a new privacy commisioner.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      it was a mistake.....

      when Google street view snapped up WiFi information, now its a mistake with safari.

      It's always a mistake or coding error but how long was it known about and not put right

      Unofficially they knew alllllll about it.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: it was a mistake.....

        Like a burglar getting into your house because you left the window open? Not my fault it you left the window open for me to steal your tv.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Rogue developer or rogue code

    Either way they'll say 'We didn't mean it to happen'

    Do evil until caught

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  3. frank ly
    FAIL

    "... that we didn't anticipate this would happen..."

    ... and they didn't bother to test for it, despite knowing that privacy breaches are an important concern.

    Then again, maybe they knew what would happen.

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    1. Hungry Sean
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      Black Helicopters

      Re: "... that we didn't anticipate this would happen..."

      well, if you test for such things, then you can hardly claim they were an accident when they are discovered. . .

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "... that we didn't anticipate this would happen..."

      Google created an invisible form on a web page and then simulated a mouse down (click on it) to bypass Safari's privacy controls. That didn't happen by accident. That's hostile code.

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  4. Kevin Johnston

    Excuse...

    Have they laminated the sheet which lists how it was a rogue developer doing some testing which slipped into the live version? Save a fortune in printing costs at this rate.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Once again

    No google fans posting here because they can't turn it into an attack on apple

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  6. C. P. Cosgrove
    FAIL

    A mistake, of course.

    "Google has said that the whole thing was a mistake."

    Hmm, I seem to remember a very similar set of statements over the Wi-fi data 'slurp' affair. They have some very talented, careless, software developers down at Google.

    Chris Cosgrove

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  7. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects
    Unhappy

    OK; I'm in.

    So what search engine do I use?

    What online Usenet reader and what mail account do I replace my Google stuff with?

    I am very unhappy, not with the secrecy thing. I use the internet, I know where all those tubes and pipes and things connect up to.

    I just hate the new format. It SUCKS.

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    1. Martin Gregorie
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      I've been using ixquick (aka startpage) since Scroogle bit the dust. It seems to do a good job and, unlike Google and friends, doesn't store any information about its users and uses SSL encryption for search queries and results.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: OK; I'm in.

      There are lots of alternatives. Personally I host my own email (I know, not for everyone) but there's Yahoo mail, MS hotmail and many, many others, often your ISP will supply webmail services that you could redirect a mail account to. As for search engines, there are also loads, Bing, Yahoo, ask, etc. etc.

      The thing is that people get happy with what they know and resist change, even when asking what the alternatives are. I'm not suggesting you are in this case, but it's pretty usual for posts on the Reg asking for alternatives to something as a setup to tell you how rubbish all the alternatives are.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmm...

    I wonder if this will turn out to be a lone "rogue" engineer, like the WiFi slurping?

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