It is the world’s most popular website with over 300 million visitors every day. Google faced criticism in the past for the way it handles user data. People surfing the web on iPhone and iPads were protected by Apple’s own safari browser. Now it turns that Google was using a secret programming code to override security settings in Safari.

Websites use Cookies to store user’s preferences and various other data on their web browser to deliver better and personalized experiences. Sometimes advertisers also store cookies to track their online behaviour. Google’s three online ad specialty firms slipped past tracker-blocking safeguards on Apple’s Safari browser, Stanford University graduate student Jonathan Mayer said Friday in a blog post.

 In response Google’s spokeswoman, Rachel Whetstone, said, “The Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why. We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed in Google users had enabled. It’s important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.”

 Three years ago, Google was in trouble across the globe after it was discovered cars pulling together the street view service were collecting information from personal Wi-Fi networks. Then last year it promised America’s federal trade commission it would improve its services on privacy.

Google says it is going to change the privacy settings across all its major products in this March, 2012. The new privacy settings will not only be easy for users to understand them but also give them a clear insight of how much personal data is being collected by Google.