On Monday, Microsoft premiered a television ad that portrays its Internet Explorer as the defender of user privacy among modern browsers.

The ad highlights IE's use of Do Not Track and its Tracking Protection Lists as effective tools in preserving online privacy, implying that Google's Chrome, Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari and Opera fail to keep up with Microsoft's principled stand on privacy.

Six months ago, Microsoft might have had a point. Now, however, many privacy advocates say that IE is the browser now falling behind in the privacy wars - because it doesn't block third-party tracking cookies by default.

(Many websites store a small snippet of code called a cookie on your hard drive when you visit the site. Typically, these cookies contain login information or other preferences. Since many websites serve up content or ads from third-parties, those third-party sources may also place tracking cookies in your browser - even though you never visited their site.)

Microsoft does allow users to manually exclude third-party cookies, as does Chrome. But Safari and soon Firefox will do this by default, stealing the wind from Microsoft's sails. 

And given Microsoft's history in terms of privacy and competition, it's easy to see the new ad - and Microsoft's whole privacy strategy - as a cynical ploy to acquire new IE users while denigrating its competitors. Even if that's true, privacy advocates said, Microsoft is at least doing something to address privacy issues. 

IE Trumpets Do Not Track, Tracking Protection

As a piece of advertising, Microsoft's spot does a fine job highlighting what users don't mind sharing, and what users would rather keep private. Microsoft focuses on two features in the 30-second ad: Do Not Track, which is turned on by default; and its Tracking Protection Lists. "Your privacy is our priority," is the tag line.

Do Not Track (DNT) merely asks a site not to track the user visiting it. At this point, Do Not Track is completely voluntary, and privacy advocates note that the vast majority of online advertising agencies decline to honor it. Microsoft's implementation of Do Not Track is little more than a symbolic gesture unless and until the online ad agencies agree to play ball. 

"Microsoft's DNT setting is fine, although it will likely be ignored until the W3C finishes the DNT standard, if ever," said David Jacobs, the Consumer Protection Counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), in an email.

Consumer watchdogs can still rattle their sabers, as Federal Trade Commission chairwoman Edith Ramirez did last week (PDF) in a speech to the American Advertising Federation. Ramirez warned that now was the time for industry stakeholders to nail down a Do Not Track agreement once and for all:

One can forgive stakeholders for thinking that it will always be so – for believing that 'not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash' the shine off this cyber-economy. But an online advertising system that breeds consumer discomfort is not a foundation for sustained growth. More likely, it is an invitation to Congress and other policymakers in the U.S. and abroad to intervene with legislation or regulation and for technical measures by browsers or others to limit tracking.

Tracking Protection lists are far more effective - they prevent websites from capturing information that the user doesn't wish to be shared. Right now, they're probably the most effective weapon that Microsoft has in protecting user privacy - but they rarely get used, according to Dan Auerbauch, a staff technologist with Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Which Browser Leads In Privacy Protection?

"Firefox and Safari I would say are in first place right now in terms of protecting user privacy," because of third-party cookie blocking by default, Auerbach said.

Safari blocks third-party cookies by default; Mozilla has begun blocking third-party cookies by default in its alpha or Aurora build, with the expectation that the standard build will block them by summer. Chrome users must turn on the feature themselves by following a few simple instructions. Microsoft IE users can do this as well - but again, not by default.

"I would hope that Microsoft would follow soon, and I think that they're well-positioned to be the leader [in privacy]," Auerbach added. "We're encouraged by this campaign from Microsoft, and we think that they have the ability to do really good things here."

What's Microsoft Really Up To Here?

Is Microsoft genuinely interested in user privacy, or is it simply raising the specter of intrusive advertising to win new converts to IE? If Microsoft hadn't run its Scroogled campaign, which has highlighted all the ways that Google allegedly misuses user data to its own commercial ends, the answer might be yes. As it is, it's difficult to see Microsoft's efforts as truly altruistic, given its past history.

"Ultimately, I'm not sure how successful the campaign will be, but I think it's generally good when companies compete on privacy," said EPIC's Jacobs. "I don't know what Microsoft's underlying motivation is, but regardless of whether it's altruistic concern for user privacy or self-interested profit maximization, consumers can still benefit."

Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn't said when or whether it will block third-party cookies by default, and company representatives weren't able to comment. Microsoft does seem to be making strides in protecting user privacy, but its competitors are poised to pass it by, if they haven't already.

Image: Flickr/Scubadive67

The Mozilla Corporation, the commercial vendor behind the popular Firefox browser, is pushing out a new policy for third-party cookies - a policy that's gotten Internet advertisers in a bit of a snit.

The new cookie policy, announced Feb. 25 on the Mozilla Privacy blog, will accept third-party cookies when a user is surfing the Web only if the user has directly interacted with the site or company trying to install the cookie on the browser's machine. Cookies from other parties served through those sites will not be accepted. 

The benefits of this policy change - for users, at least - are immediately apparent: Instead of collecting a myriad of cookies from random sites' ads as they move through the Web, users will pick up cookies only from the sites they actually visit, explained Alex Fowler, who leads privacy and public policy for Mozilla.

"In my own use of this release this morning, I followed one of my typical browsing paths, starting with a look at surfing conditions, then local news, a major national news site, and a popular site covering the tech industry," Fowler wrote.

Fowler charted out his before-and-after results after applying the patch, and came up with a startling difference: he collected 385 first- and third-party cookies with Firefox using the old default policy that allows all cookies. Using the new default policy, Fowler's browser collected just 75 first-party cookies.

IAB: Cookies Mean Freedom

Of course, not everyone is thrilled by the move. In an open letter to Mozilla, Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) president and CEO Randall Rothenberg took issue with the new policy. And understandably so from his perspective, since the default blocking of third-party cookies in a major Web browser could put a big crimp in potential ad revenue.

But that is not the argument Rothenberg makes. Instead, he somehow casts third-party cookies as user-protection issue:

"If Mozilla follows through on its plan to block all third-party cookies, the disruption will disenfranchise every single internet user," Rothenberg writes. "All of us will lose the freedom to choose our own online experiences; we will lose the opportunity to monitor and protect our privacy; and we will lose the chance to benefit from independent sites like RightWingNews.com LiberalOasis.com, MotherhoodWTF.com, and SuburbanDaddy.com because thousands of small businesses that make up the diversity of content and services online will be forced to close their doors."

One of Rothenberg's arguments, that users will lose the capability to protect their own privacy, has some legs. Referring to the opt-out policy that the Digital Advertising Alliance (which includes the IAB) promotes, Rothenberg points out a potential flaw in Mozilla's plan: once a user opts out of receiving a certain ad, it's third-party cookies that keep that ad from appearing again. Remove the capability to track such cookies, and that unwanted ad will appear again and again, the IAB executive reasons.

Is Choice Removed?

For all of Rothenberg's exhortations about Mozilla clamping down on freedom of choice, though, it is important to remember that Mozilla isn't completely banning third-party cookies in Firefox at all. If a user wants to allow such cookies to be installed on their browser again, they can easily go into Firefox's privacy settings and make the change. The choice is still in the hands of the users.

Even if third-party cookies do provide some positive benefits, there are clearly quite a few negative effects, and for now Mozilla seems to be erring on the side of caution on behalf of Firefox users. Given the track record of how security-ignorant most Web surfer is, that's probably a good approach.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia.

The privacy-obsessed don't seem to think much of Google.

A survey of consumer confidence found Mozilla to be the most trustworthy pure Internet company when it comes to user privacy, the organization eagerly announced. Out of companies generally, Mozilla broke into the top 20 in the study, which was conducted by the Ponemon Institute.

The top 20 includes plenty of other tech firms, including Amazon, eBay, Intuit, IBM, Microsoft, HP and even oft-loathed telecom carriers Verizon and AT&T.

Notably absent? Google.

It's worth noting that this survey is a measure of consumer sentiment, not actual privacy features. Google gets very high ranks from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in its annual Privacy Scorecard, which tracks how major tech companies score on major issues of privacy. Twitter and the ISP Sonic.net topped the EFF's list last year, but Google ranked third thanks to its privacy policies, transparency about user data requests from governments and legal and legislative advocacy on behalf of protecting user privacy.

The EFF doesn't include Mozilla in its Privacy Scorecard and declined to offer an off-the-cuff score for the nonprofit. 

Mozilla vs. Google - Who Can You Really Trust More? 

Mozilla is making a big deal of its ranking, and has been making user privacy a very public priority for some time. Despite questions about its effectiveness, the organization has been proactive in incorporating Do Not Track technology in its browsers. Mozilla espouses a six-point philosophy when it comes to user privacy and generally tends to be transparent about its intentions and activities related to how it shares and protects user data. 

At the same time, Google - which has more complex privacy issues to contend with as a search engine, email provider and major player in mobile computing - has itself been pretty transparent on privacy, doing things like publishing regular transparency reports outlining the growing number of government requests it receives. Google tends to comply with those inquiries, but does so judiciously and has decried the ease with which governments are legally able to snoop on users' electronic communications. 

At the end of the day, both Chrome and Firefox are secure, privacy-friendly browsers - as are their other competitors. But defending privacy for Google is inherently more challenging given the company's enormous size and broad product line. And it appears that Google is not doing a great job of portraying itself as a privacy-friendly organization.

That could be a big problem. Moving forward, such perceptions - even more than objective actions and policies - could be crucial competitive differentiators.

Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock. 

For Mozilla, 2012 was a year to start transitions. The browser maker started its biggest transition since releasing Firefox in 2004 when it started building Firefox OS, a HTML5 Web-based mobile operating system for smartphones.

Mozilla also focused a lot of attention on its Firefox for Android browser as a bit of a proving ground for its fledgling operating system. It has almost everything in place to make a big push in the mobile sector come 2013.

Mozilla calls Firefox OS the operating system “to power the world’s first Open Web Device.” That is an interesting statement. Mozilla is putting together four elements that are not usually thought of in the same breath: open, Web, mobile and operating system.

You can put any two or three of those elements together and make a world of sense. Open + Web is the most obvious, as open standards rule the Internet and are the basis of Firefox itself. Open + mobile could point to (in some ways) Google’s Android operating system or technology stacks like HTML5. Mobile + operating system points to iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, BREW, Tizen, Bada, Palm, Symbian and so on. Even Web + operating System makes a certain amount of sense, if you look at Google’s Chrome OS. 

An open mobile Web-based operating system? That does not exist. 

Chrome OS may be the closest to what Mozilla is trying to build, but as yet it can only be found on laptop and notebook-like PC devices. Tizen, the bastard offspring of MeeGo and supported by the Linux Foundation, may come close. Palm OS, ostensibly supported by Hewlett-Packard, is Web-based and open source, but the poor remnants of Palm are an ill-formed zombie. 

Mozilla’s biggest challenge has been to bridge the capabilities of a mobile browser with the features and functions of a smartphone. Part of that challenge is tying the browser to the hardware features of a smartphone, like the camera or internal storage. To tackle this issue, Mozilla has created what it calls Web APIs (application programming interfaces) to tie the browser to the hardware. To this point, Mozilla has 30 Web APIs that command features like the proximity sensor, phone vibration, push notifications and power management.  

See the infographic below from Mozilla to view progress the company made in both its mobile and desktop browser spaces in 2012. 

A Firefox couple highlights:

• Do Not Track was adopted by 19% of Firefox mobile users and 8.6% of desktop users
• New Firefox is 50% faster with four times less memory used than the previous version
• Firefox added new social APIs including Facebook integration
• 50 billion items were synced through Firefox in 2012

Trying to break your addiction to Facebook's non-stop party of social micro-happenings? If you use the Firefox Web browser, that uphill battle might just have just reached Sisyphean heights. Tuesday, Mozilla cracked open its social API with native support for Facebook's chat feature, Facebook Messenger.  

I spoke with Jonathan Nightingale, VP of Firefox Engineering, and Gavin Sharp, Firefox Engineering manager, about what inspired Firefox's new support for social integration:. "We're trying to recognize that social is a different kind of thing," said Nightingale. "People don't use social the way they use the rest of the Web." Since users aggressively tab-hop to stay plugged into sites like Facebook, the team wanted to develop a way to let social notifications "float above" the browsing experience in a more persistent, less cumbersome way.

So much for productivity.

The new Facebook integration goes above and beyond the existing add-ons that thrive in the Firefox ecosystem, draping Facebook's social sidebar and chat boxes right over the browsing experience. Facebook Messenger for Firefox also adds a toolbar that lets users check notifications and friend requests, and easily toggle the the appearance of the sidebar on or off.

Nightingale and Sharp drew a distinction between Firefox's flexible new social tendencies and the class of social-by-definition browsers like Flock (R.I.P) and RockMelt, which haven't exactly caught on among Web users. Nightingale notes that in true Mozilla fashion, users can opt into new features like Messenger for Firefox or ignore them altogether. "We want to be sure that, at the end of the day, users have choice."  

The built-in social tool is just the first in Firefox 17, Mozilla's latest build of its famously open source browser. The feature has been floating around in the beta since October 22, but Tuesday marks its official debut in a final Firefox release. While Facebook and Firefox worked together to develop the integrated social sidebar, Mozilla's new Social API will open the doors for other social products. "We see potential for Social API integrations beyond traditional social sites, too – imagine using the sidebar as an easy way to keep up with group projects, email or new music," the company writes on its blog.

To install Facebook Messenger for Firefox, you'll want to be sure Firefox is up to date, then click the big green "Turn On" button over at Facebook's hub for the new feature. As for turning it off? Firefox makes that easy enough in theory, but after that first dopaminergic jolt of Facebook notifications right in your browser, you might find it harder than expected to live without.