Microsoft has hit back at claims that IE8 reports user information to Redmond.

Cyra Richardson, a Microsoft principal program manager said that while it was true that IE8 suggested sites based on the URLs typed into its address bar, the browser "phones home" only a limited amount of information to Microsoft.
 

She said that the browser capture as little uniquely identifiable information as possible. All Microsoft knows is the URL that the user is visiting, the version of the browser and general locale information. To get that information Microsoft does read the IP address, she said.

However, unlike Google, which hangs on to the IP address, Microsoft immediately junks the data once its job has been done.

Richardson added that IE8's Suggested Sites feature was nothing like Google's 'Suggest' feature, because IE8 doesn't record every keystroke. Rather than transmit each character as it's typed, including partial URLs that are abandoned by the user, Suggested Sites logs and transmits only the final URL. X

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