That browser history information now goes to Tencent, which gives Tencent information about the innovation in that U.S.
“Someone in an American company might be doing research on an innovative product. “If I were browsing websites of interest to the Chinese government, these systems could leak that information to Tencent,” he told TechNewsWorld.īrowser information also could be valuable to intellectual property thieves.
#Com apple safari safebrowsing service series#
“The fact that browser history information is going to a Chinese company that may or may not be giving access to that data to the Chinese government is something that should raise a series of red flags from a security standpoint in the United States.” Value of Browser HistoriesĪ person’s browser history can reveal valuable data, noted Matthew Green, a professor specializing in cryptography in the computer science department at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. “The way this is structured, that’s not going to be the case,” Reidenberg continued. “Safe browsing should not only mean you’re protected from visiting websites that are dangerous, but that your privacy is safe, too,” he told TechNewsWorld. Reidenberg, founding academic director of the Center on Law and Information Policy at Fordham University School of Law in New York City.
That should concern consumers, maintained law professor Joel R. Depending on where an Apple device is registered, the browser could be sending IP information to Tencent, a conglomerate with close ties to China’s government.Īpple offers the following explanation in Safari’s settings section: “Before visiting a website, Safari may send information calculated from the website address to Google Safe Browsing and Tencent Safe Browsing to check if the website is fraudulent.” The option, called “safe browsing,” is turned on by default. An option in Apple’s Safari browser that’s supposed to protect Web surfers from malicious sites has raised privacy concerns in some quarters.