Company managers also contrasted IE8 Beta 2’s “Suggested Sites” feature with the “Suggest” feature used by rival Google Inc. in its Chrome browser, saying that Microsoft’s browser requires the user’s explicit permission before it’s used. They did, however, acknowledge a bug that prevents the request from reappearing during reinstalls.

Users who downloaded the search giant’s Chrome browser yesterday were asked to give Google a “perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly, perform, publicly display and distribute” any information they typed into a website.

In many ways, how the country will react to the pregnancy of Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is more a sociological question than a political one. It will test again what voters deem private, at a time when the Internet has pulled down so many curtains, and what in these times is considered a normal family life.

The InPrivate Browsing feature in Microsoft’s latest browser is designed to delete a user’s browsing history and other personal data that is gathered and stored during regular browsing sessions. The feature is commonly referred to as ‘porn mode’ for its ability to hide which websites have been visited from nosy spouses or employers.

With Beta 2, Microsoft is introducing InPrivate Browsing, which ensures users don’t leave any trace of the sites they have been visiting. Some are referring to the feature as “porn mode,” given that it most likely would be used to hide tracks to such sites.

The computer, which was sold on eBay for £77, contained sensitive information on several million bank customers. The information is said to have included account details and in some cases customers’ signatures, mobile phone numbers and mothers’ maiden names.

The F.B.I. has a long history of abusing its authority to spy on domestic groups, including civil rights and anti-war activists, and there is a real danger that the new rules would revive those dark days. Clearly, the Bush administration cannot be trusted to get the balance between law enforcement and civil liberties right.

By a slim margin, the majority of nearly 300 readers who responded to the poll said they had never logged into someone else’s email or social networking account without their knowledge. But that still leaves a whopping 42 percent who readily admit to it — and this is coming from an educated tech-readership, not a band of merry thieves (or so we thought…).

To quell privacy fears before Street View’s launch, Google said it would blur number plates and faces and instruct its drivers only to photograph public roads. Despite this, a number of private roads and unblurred faces and number plates appeared on the Google Maps feature.

Google expects tourists, home seekers, students and armchair explorers to embrace Street View in their research. However, many of the original photographs that were part of the US Street View launch were subsequently taken down following privacy concerns.