How Internet Explorer Almost Set the Bar for Privacy, But Chose Ad Dollars Instead

by Terrence O'Brien on August 2, 2010 at 06:45 PM

Today, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy report revealing the behind-the-scenes debates that shaped the creation of Internet Explorer 8, and derailed the development team's plan to make the much-maligned browser the poster boy for privacy protection. As it turns out, the InPrivate filter, which is sometimes charmingly called "porn mode," was almost made the default behavior for IE, and would have blocked many third-party cookies and other tracking features. This would have been great for user privacy, but it set off alarms in other Microsoft divisions. Most notably perturbed was its advertising department, which had spent $6 billion in the purchase of digital marketing service aQuantive. Setting InPrivate as the default behavior would have seriously disrupted the ability of advertising networks to track user behavior, which is essential when tailoring Web-ads to individuals.

When the rest of Microsoft discovered the IE team's plans, a "heated debate" erupted, involving not just Microsoft execs, but reps from advertising organizations, as well. Of particular concern was a feature that would identify third-party code embedded in websites; if the filter detected the same code on more than ten sites, it would automatically block said code from loading, as the browser would presume that it was some form of tracking software. This method would give users much more protection than simply turning off cookies would, but advertisers argued that it could disable legitimately useful portions of websites, and make it much harder for sites to sell advertising space.

In the end, the advertising execs won. InPrivate was disabled by default, and doesn't grant users the option to enable it permanently. (It must be turned on manually each time the browser is started.) A blacklist feature that would allow users to block particularly aggressive tracking sites also ended up on the cutting room floor -- also out of fear of what it might do to advertising revenue. IE 8 can't compete with other modern browsers when it comes to speed or compliance with standards, but it came very close to having the strongest privacy protection in the industry -- until advertisers had their say. Had InPrivate been enabled by default, it could have altered the browser landscape, and likely thrown a wrench in the current online ad market. That's not necessarily a good thing, but it would have been interesting to see Microsoft play the role of rebel for once. [From: Wall Street Journal, via: Engadget]

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Tags: advertising, browsers, ie 8, Ie8, inprivate, internet explorer, InternetExplorer, InternetExplorer8, microsoft, OnlineAdvertising, privacy, top, web