Another rotten apple
mr_z...@sbcglobal.net
Google and others track Apple users
Google bypassed privacy settings in Safari, the iPhone's internet browser, in order to track its users.
Kai Ryssdal: Consider
this: 55 million iPhones were sold last year. Used for
phone calls and game playing and picture taking and web
surfing. If you have an iPhone or an iPad or a Mac, you're
probably using the Safari web browser -- comes standard on
Apple devices with the
added benefit of not letting
advertisers keep an eye on where Safari users go online.
Well, at least that's how its supposed to be.
A story in the Wall Street Journal today says otherwise. Julia Angwin shared the byline on it. Julia, good to have you with us.
Julia Angwin: Happy to be here.
Ryssdal: So, in as layman-like terms as possible, what exactly is going on here?
Angwin: I know this is a
very complicated story. So, what is going is we learned
that Google and a few other ad companies were
circumventing the privacy settings on Apple's Safari Web
browser. So the Safari Web browser is what most people use
on their iPhones, iPads and
some people use on their desktop
computers.
Ryssdal: OK. Another way that I've heard this put is that they're putting cookies in there -- those things that sort of track where you're going.
Angwin: Yes, so basically
Safari is the only major Web browser that -- by default --
blocks the installation of cookies, which are these little
tracking files, from sites other than the site you're
visiting. So for instance if you visit the Wall Street
Journal Web site, you would get a
cookie maybe from that Web site and that
might remember your settings. But it doesn't allow other
advertisers usually who are on that page to place cookies
on your machine.
Ryssdal: And what Google was doing would?
Angwin: Yes. Google and a few others used a technique that tricked Safari into allowing their cookies to be placed on these users' computers.
Ryssdal: That word you used -- "tricking" Safari into letting cookies be implanted -- it implies nefariousness.
Angwin: Right, and Google would say it was not nefarious. But I will explain the "trick" in the clearest way I can possibly describe it.
Ryssdal: In the aforementioned layman's terms.
Angwin: Yes. So Safari, in
general, is designed to prevent these advertisers from
placing cookies on the user's computer. But it does have
an exception. It believes that if you, the user, click on
an ad and fill out a form, for instance, you want a cookie
from them. You clearly are
interacting with that advertisement in
some way. So what Google and these others were doing was
actually embedding invisible forms into their ads, which
were then automatically submitted -- without the user
doing anything -- back to Google, which allowed Safari to
think that you, the user, had done
something with that ad. You may not have looked at it, you
may not have clicked, but in fact the browser thought you
had and allowed the cookie to be placed.
Ryssdal: Why would Google do this? What's the upside for them?
Angwin: So here's what
Google says about why they did this. They were trying to
embed a little button called "+1." So the idea was that if
you looked at an ad and liked it, you could click this
"+1" button. And in order to tell if you were logged into
their "Google+" system. They
wanted to drop this cookie to check your
logged in status. But the end result was they ended up
circumventing a lot of people's privacy settings.
Ryssdal: Much has been
made the past -- I don't know -- two, three weeks about
Google's privacy policies. Their revamping them and the
company says their streamlining them. They've had privacy
issues in the past. This does not seem to be a positive
development in the world of
Google privacy.
Angwin: Right. Not only
have they just done this privacy policy revamp -- which I
think raised a lot of scruples, but also Google signed a
consent decree -- a twenty-year privacy consent decree --
with the Federal Trade Commission in October, in which
they promised not to ever
misrepresent their privacy practices to
consumers.
Ryssdal: Frame this form me in the larger you-have-know-privacy-get-over-it debate.
Angwin: What I think it
means is that: Every time we see one of these slip ups,
the companies involved talk about bugs, or a loop hole,
but the fact of the matter is what we're really coming to
see -- after months and years of these
"I'm-sorry-it-was-a-mistake" issues -- is that
surveillance has become such much a part
of every our lives, it's almost impossible to turn off.
There are no rules and I think there's a growing sense of
uneasiness about, "What is going to happen to all this
information about every Web site I ever visited?"
Ryssdal: Julia Angwin at the Wall Street Journal. Julia, thanks a lot.
Angwin: Thank you.
Ryssdal: Investors in the
more-ubiquitous-than-anyone-ever-thought search company
sold off today. Shares of Google closed down three-tenths
percent. A measly $604 a piece.
Small talk: New car smell, Girl Scout cookies
Kai Ryssdal: This final note of a Friday afternoon. A chance to take a break from the big news of the week and catch up with what didn't quite make the headlines. It comes to us courtesty of Rico Gagliano, Brendan Francis Newnam and the rest of the Marketplace staff.
Brendan Newnam: Stacey Vanek Smith, senior reporter for Marketplace. What's your story?
Stacey Vanek Smith: Happy Girl Scout cookie season!
Newnam: Already, really?
Vanek Smith: I know!
Newnam: Wow, I didn't get you anything.
Vanek Smith: The gift is
self-evident, luckily, on this holiday -- Tagalongs, by
the way. And there's something special this year about the
Girl Scout cookie-buying experience: the Girl Scouts are
now taking credit cards. Girl Scouts will have swipers and
you can pay for them with
plastic.
Newnam: So is this in
conjunction with their new identity
theft merit badge?
Rico Gagliano: Ethan Lindsay, producer of the Marketplace Morning Report. What story are you going to be talking about this weekend?
Ethan Lindsay: The new car smell, that mythical odor.
Gagliano: The perfume of the middle class.
Lindsay: Right. Well the Ecology Center, it's a nonprofit group, came out and said that new car smell -- it can kill you.
Gagliano: It can kill you?
Lindsay: It's toxic. They're spraying bromine and lead. That's what smells so nice.
Gagliano: See, this explains why I'm so incredibly healthy.
Lindsay: Yeah, I have no problem getting into your car, Rico.
Gagliano: No, no. The rusting 2000 Corolla is completely -- no one's going to be made sick except to look at it.
Newnam: David Gura, Washington reporter for Marketplace. What story are you going to be talking about?
David Gura: This comes out of a magazine called International Living.
Newnam: Ah.
Gura: I'm not a subscriber to International Living.
Newnam: It's kind of a broad topic.
Gura: Exactly. They have a message for retirees: Forget Florida -- Ecuador. That's where it's at.
Newnam: Really?
Gura: They're calling it the world's top retirement haven. The magazine's holding a contest, and the winner gets to spend a month in the Ecuador highlands, all expenses paid. All you've got to is tell the magazine why you want to spend your retirement in Ecuador.
Newnam: And so you have to be of retirement age, I'm guessing.
Gura: Yeah. And I think that this may be the most challenging part: You've got to tell them that in a three-minute video, which you've got to upload to YouTube. So good luck.
Newnam: So maybe if you have an ambitious grandchild who wants you to leave the country.
Gura: Get out of town, Grandma!