Released: September 09, 2008

Google promises privacy fix to Chrome browser

Source: Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post (Free Registration)

Google whose new, faster Web browser Chrome has raised privacy concerns on both sides of the Atlantic, said yesterday it was taking steps to mask the identities of people who use the tool.

The move comes as privacy advocates here and in Europe expressed concern that the browser had the potential to give Google a way to track even more of users’ online behavior and create rich profiles of them.

Jane Horvath, Google’s senior privacy counsel, said that the company would be anonymizing the Internet Protocol address and the cookies that track users when they type search terms or Web pages into Chrome’s Omnibox, an all-in-one search and address bar. She said Google also would anonymize the IP addresses associated with search queries typed in by users into Google’s standard search bar nine months after they have been collected.

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