Microsoft to introduce anti-tracking feature in IE 9

Microsoft’s vice-president Dean Hachamovitch and chief privacy officer Peter Cullen told the press that tracking protection list will be an optional feature, and Microsoft will not provide any list of tracking websites. Third parties will be allowed to provide the list to users. So, privacy advocacy groups or consumer protection groups or even individuals may provide these lists.

Once downloaded, these lists will be updated on a weekly basis through a subscription mechanism.

Hachamovitch said while describing the new privacy tool, "Tracking protection puts people in control, enabling consumers to indicate what Web sites they'd prefer to not exchange information with."

How the tool will work
The privacy protection tool will work in the following manner:

First the privacy groups will make a list of the online addresses of the tracking companies. These will be offered to users, who will click to add one such list to their IE 9 browser. Then the Internet Explorer will start blocking the tracking companies mentioned in the list from the computer of the user. This list will be updated every week.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 had a similar feature. It was removed after the online advertisers expressed their concerns about its impact on their business, Wall street Journal had reported in a front page report published earlier this year.

Online advertisers skeptical but others happy
This latest move was appreciated by regulators and privacy groups, but the $23 billion online advertisement industry criticized it. Advertisers have also expressed concern that this tool can prevent them from sending ads and other content to the users.

The announcements gains importance in the wake of recent reports of FTC calling for “Do not track” system that would allow users to send the tracking companies a message that they do not wish to be tracked.

FTC chairman, Jon Leibowitz, appreciated the move by Microsoft and called upon other browser software makers to introduce similar features.

Representatives of Firefox maker, Mozilla, Google Inc and Apple Inc have not responded yet.