“When the IE team heard that Google had bypassed user privacy settings on Safari, we asked ourselves a simple question: is Google circumventing the privacy preferences of Internet Explorer users too?” Hachamovitch wrote.

“We’ve discovered the answer is yes: Google is employing similar methods to get around the default privacy protections in IE and track IE users with cookies."

Google had been using special computer code to trick Apple's Safari Web browser software into letting the company monitor users -- tracking Safari is designed to block by default. When contacted by the Wall Street Journal, Google disabled the code and told Fox News the Journal was distorting its findings.