Google Caught Hacking Into Safari To Track Apple Users

Feel like somebody's watching you? It's Google.

Already earning a reputation for being some Peeping Toms, Google was recently busted by the Wall Street Journal for hacking Safari to record Apple users' online behavior.

According to WSJ, Google has been "tricking" Apple's Safari browser into letting Google monitor Apple users' web-surfing behavior, even when users want the tracking to be blocked.

Here's more of their report:

Google found a way to drop tracking "cookies" on Safari users even when Safari was set to block cookies.

These cookies, which were invisible to users, could then be controlled by Google and used to store additional information about the users' behavior, including information like the users' Google login information.

More specifically, the "trick" Google used to fool Safari was to use ads served by Google's Doubleclick unit to make Safari think that the users were intentionally interacting with the ads. This allowed Google to drop temporary cookies on the users' computers, which then allowed Google to follow the users around the web.

When Google was confronted about their scheme they said WSJ was "mischaracterizing its behavior." They promptly stopped doing it after.