{Stuff}

... a FEATURE, not a bug.

Unsourced / unvarified.

People surfing the Web incognito may want to think twice before using Internet Explorer. Microsoft today said it is investigating a possible privacy loophole in its Internet Explorer browser that could thwart efforts by people who want to surf the Web anonymously. The feature in IE 5 and above, referred to by Microsoft as "persistence," is designed to let Web pages remember information, such as search queries, entered by visitors.

But privacy advocates complain, and Microsoft today acknowledged, that the trade-off for that convenience is that Web sites could uniquely identify visitors as they return over time--without any warning from IE. Microsoft defended the feature and pointed out that the vast majority of Web surfers already are knowingly vulnerable to the same level of exposure.