Microsoft executives to blame for bad privacy protection in IE8

WSJ reports the poor privacy protection in Internet Explorer 8 is the result of a heated debate inside Microsoft. The IE developers wanted to design the software to automatically thwart common web tracking tools, but the executives quashed the effort as they feared it would reduce the company's profit from online advertising. Privacy-rights advocates are disappointed by the decision, the original privacy plan would have made IE8 an industry leader, but due to the current implementation most users don't even know better privacy protection is just a couple of clicks away.

As the leading maker of Web browsers, the gateway software to the Internet, Microsoft must balance conflicting interests: helping people surf the Web with its browser to keep their mouse clicks private, and helping advertisers who want to see those clicks.

In the end, the product planners lost a key part of the debate. The winners: executives who argued that giving automatic privacy to consumers would make it tougher for Microsoft to profit from selling online ads. Microsoft built its browser so that users must deliberately turn on privacy settings every time they start up the software.

Microsoft's original privacy plans for the new Explorer were "industry-leading" and technically superior to privacy features in earlier browsers, says Simon Davies, a privacy-rights advocate in the U.K. whom Microsoft consulted while forming its browser privacy plans. Most users of the final product aren't even aware its privacy settings are available, he says. "That's where the disappointment lies."