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"Google and other companies have overridden the  iPhone's privacy settings to monitor users' web-browsing habits, according to a report.\nThe Wall Street Journal found that Google was using a \"special computer code\" that tricked Apple's Safari browser into tracking users' behaviors. Safari has built-in protections against such tracking.\nThe report, which was based on an observation by Stanford researcher Jonathan Mayer and confirmed by the WSJ's technical advisor, Ashkan Soltani, prompted Google to disable its code. Soltani found that 23 of the top 100 websites installed Google's tracking code on Safari. \nIn addition to Google, Vibrant media, Media Innovation Group and PointRoll were found to be using \"similar techniques,\" according to the report.\nIn response to the article, Rachel Whetstone, senior vice president, communications and public policy, released the following statement: \nThe Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why. We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled. It\u2019s important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.\n\nUnlike other major browsers, Apple\u2019s Safari browser blocks third-party cookies by default.  However, Safari enables many web features for its users that rely on third parties and third-party cookies, such as \u201CLike\u201D buttons.  Last year, we began using this functionality to enable features for signed-in Google users on Safari who had opted to see personalized ads and other content\u2014such as the ability to \u201C+1\u201D things that interest them.\nTo enable these features, we created a temporary communication link between Safari browsers and Google\u2019s servers, so that we could ascertain whether Safari users were also signed into Google, and had opted for this type of personalization. But we designed this so that the information passing between the user\u2019s Safari browser and Google\u2019s servers was anonymous\u2014effectively creating a barrier between their personal information and the web content they browse.\nHowever, the Safari browser contained functionality that then enabled other Google advertising cookies to be set on the browser. We didn\u2019t anticipate that this would happen, and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers.  It\u2019s important to stress that, just as on other browsers, these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.\n\nGoogle's handling of users' privacy has come under scrutiny before. In November, Google settled with the FTC over a privacy-related probe that requires the company submit to a bi-annual review from a third-party oversight board for the next 20 years. Google also tweaked its privacy policy in January. The new policy was designed to let users know that data from all Google products \u2014 including Google+, search and YouTube \u2014 will be treated as one set of data.\nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, ymgerman"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/02/17/google-tracked-iphones/>