This is a must read, especially for those still using IE, but also for web browsing in general. It should influence the way you use the browser, and which browser you choose to use.

Basically it describes the tussles within Microsoft between the developers of Internet Explorer 8 and other MS executives more interested in what the proposed new privacy settings within IE8 would do to Microsofts advertising revenues. Not to mention the fact they would seriously upset a lot of the online advertisers and tracking companies.
The result is you the user is shafted in favour of Microsoft’s bottom line.

Of special interest to users of IE8 are these 3 paragraphs. Particularly the second one.

“When Microsoft released the browser in its final form in March 2009, the privacy features were a lot different from what its planners had envisioned. Internet Explorer required the consumer to turn on the feature that blocks tracking by websites, called InPrivate Filtering. It wasn’t activated automatically.

What’s more, even if consumers turn the feature on, Microsoft designed the browser so InPrivate Filtering doesn’t stay on permanently. Users must activate the privacy setting every time they start up the browser.

Microsoft dropped another proposed feature, known as InPrivate Subscriptions, that would have let users further conceal their online browsing habits, by automatically blocking Web addresses suspected of consumer tracking if those addresses appeared on “black lists” compiled by privacy groups.”

The Wall Street Journal.