Technology giants Microsoft Corp. and facebook Inc. moved to beef up and clarify their efforts around the thorny issue of online privacy—the latest steps by the Internet firms to call for stronger consumer protections.
On Thursday, Microsoft endorsed the concept of adding a do-not-track tool to its Web browsing software, signaling a shift in support for a system that could let people avoid having their movements monitored online. Microsoft slipped its mention of the tool—specifically, adding a reference to a do-not-track feature in its Internet Explorer browser—into a technical paper it submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium.
On Friday, meanwhile, Facebook unveiled a new draft of its highly watched privacy policy. While the new policy doesn't change the social network's data-handling practices, it contains chunks of information organized around more practical headings such as "your information and how it is used" and "how advertising works."
The moves underline how some tech companies are continuing to grapple with online privacy concerns. The Wall Street Journal has been running an investigative series, "What They Know," which chronicled the scope and increasing intrusiveness of online-tracking technologies. The Federal Trade Commission has since weighed in with proposals on improving online privacy, as efforts to simplify privacy policies and controls have also gained steam across a range of companies.
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Associated Press
Facebook unveiled a new draft of its privacy policy on Friday.
A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company's proposed do-not-track feature is part of a suite of privacy tools that the company hopes can gain broad industry support. Microsoft has said its upcoming Web browser, Internet Explorer 9, will also include an anti-tracking tool that will let users create their own custom lists of companies to block from tracking them.
Microsoft removed similar features from Internet Explorer 8 after online advertisers expressed concerns about the impact on their business.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau, which represents online advertisers, said "there is currently no definition" of what advertisers should do when receiving the do-not-track notification. "It's like sending a smoke signal in the middle of Manhattan; it might draw a lot of attention, but no one knows how to read the message," said Mike Zaneis, senior vice president of the organization.
Microsoft's move leaves Google Inc. as the only major Web browser maker that has not yet supported the inclusion of a do-not-track tool in its Web browser. In January, Mozilla Corp. said it would add a do-not-track tool to an upcoming version of its Firefox Web browser.
A Google spokesman said it would "continue to be involved closely" with discussions about do-not-track tools, but for now would stick with offering add-on software for its Chrome Web browser.
Meanwhile, Edward Palmieri, a privacy and product counsel at Facebook, said the goal of the new draft of the start-up's privacy policy was to "apply the Facebook design experience that we bring to everything we do and extend that to our privacy policy."
Mr. Palmieri said Facebook has been working on the new privacy policy since a company-wide "Hackathon" work session last October, and consulted with a handful of privacy groups for feedback.
"The new policy is much more of a user guide to how to manage your data," said Jules Polonetsky, the director of the Future of Privacy Forum, which was consulted by Facebook. "You might actually want to read this thing."
The new privacy policy is Facebook's latest step to address users' and regulators' concerns about privacy. Last spring, Facebook consolidated many of its settings into a control panel designed to make it easier for users to adjust when and how their information was shared with other users and third parties.
Write to Julia Angwin at julia.angwin@wsj.com and Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com
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