In April and May iPhone users had to deal with a wave of apps asking permission to track them on the platform, after Apple made changes to their policies forbidding apps from tracking users without their consent.
It seems Edge users will soon have to deal with the same, as Microsoft begs users to allow them to use your browser data to show you targetted ads on Windows.
Techdows reports that in the latest Edge Dev builds Microsoft is now showing a pop-up asking consent to personalize Edge and Microsoft services ch as Search, shopping, News, and Ads.
The prompt is controlled by a new setting called “Share browsing data with other Windows features”.
The setting description notes:
Share browsing data with other Windows features
When turned on, Microsoft Edge will connect local browsing data from this profile with the rest of Windows. Turning this feature on will help you find information from your history, favorites, top sites and recent tabs more easily using features such as the search box on the taskbar in Windows. If you turn off this feature Microsoft Edge will remove the data shared with Windows on the device and stop sharing any new browsing data from this profile.
The setting would in effect bypass the end of cookies by directly transmitting your Edge browsing data to Microsoft’s ad services, a level of tracking I don’t think most readers would be happy with.
The feature is expected to roll out to mainstream users by the end of July this year.
Would our readers consent to all their browsing data being shared with Microsoft and used for ads and other personalization? Let us know below.