IE 8 feature thwarts targeted ads, Google

Leave it to Microsoft. In one fell swoop, the Redmond giant has found a way to undermine Google's bread-and-butter ad business, call attention to Google's tepid privacy stances and provide users with exactly what they want: A way to preserve their privacy as they search the Web. By adding the new InPrivate feature within its IE 8 browser, Microsoft is hitting Google where it lives.

The new feature, nicknamed "porn mode," lets users cover their tracks as they surf the Web. InPrivate mode creates a browsing session that is completely destroyed when the window is closed. It leaves no entries in the browser history, no cookies, and no cached files, nor is any autocomplete or other form information stored. It also enables users to selectively delete cookies, leaving some to preserve often-used log-in information, while wiping the rest completely clear.

The new mode also has a feature aimed at thwarting ad-serving companies like Google. The method, as explained in this ArsTechnical post, not only blocks cookies but also certain codes these companies use to track and compile browsing behavior across several different sites:

"An example of this is Google Analytics, a referral and advertising tracking system from Google used by many high-profile websites. Any web page using Google Analytics needs to load javascript from the domain "google-analytics.com." Because all sites using Google Analytics use the same source domain for the script, Google can track a user across any Analytics-using site. This allows Google to get a better idea of what a particular user's interests are—which sites they visit, how regularly they visit them, what products they buy, and so on—and hence tailor adverts to those users.

It is this form of tracking that InPrivate Blocking is targeting. If IE8 detects that the same off-site resource has been used by more than ten sites (so, ten different sites each using a javascript from google-analytics.com, for instance) then the script is treated as a tracking device, and future attempts to access the resource are blocked.

Not everyone will flock to use the new privacy mode, but there are plenty of consumers worried enough about preserving their privacy to make it pretty popular. While some say Google will come up with a way to get around the blocking, perhaps by offering a whiz bang toolbar that restores the blocked information, the new feature can't be good news for its ad business. Score one for Redmond.