As the anticipated IE8 Beta 2 approaches finish line (Microsoft confirmed they’re on track to deliver it this August), there are of course a number of things we need to know about it. First of all, Microsoft supports the idea that “users should be in control of their information,” which means there are going to be new privacy features to put users in control of their data and give them tools to protect it.

Microsoft is trying to give real meaning to the word “choice,” as the company revealed the two essential elements of privacy that need to be addressed in IE8: disclosure and choice. Giving users the power to control the information they keep and exchange is a first step toward putting aside customers’ concerns about privacy on the Web.

Internet Explorer 8 will have four major privacy features, which will allow users to control their history, cookies, as well as other information stored by IE8 on their behalf, as well as give them the possibility to control the way their browsing history is shared by websites.

First of all, there is the InPrivate Browsing, which helps users by not storing history, cookies, temporary Internet files or other data. In other words, this means that IE8 will turn all cookies into session cookies, will not record new history entries, will delete temporary Internet files after the Private Browsing window is closed, will not store form data, passwords, addresses typed into the address bar, queries, as well as visited links.

Another privacy feature included in IE8 will be Delete Browsing History, which makes deleting IE stored information easy to do. At the same time, users will have the possibility to delete only the information they want, without deleting their preferences (cookies). IE8 allows users to keep cookies and temporary Internet files from all websites listed in Favorites.

The InPrivate Blocking feature gives users the choice to choose what information they share with third-party websites. However, although users and privacy advocates may like it, advertisers are not very happy about it. The Washington Post quoted Microsoft as saying that although never intended as an ad blocker, the InPrivate Blocking privacy feature “may” block some ads.

“Today, sites that people don’t know they visited are in a position to create a profile about where and how they browse,” Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Internet Explorer, explained. “People should be able to choose whether or not they want to be part of that exchange of information,’ he told the same source.

The fourth privacy feature, called InPrivate Subscriptions, targets users who want to protect their privacy, but don’t want to make granular decisions about what content to block or allow. InPrivate Subscriptions delegates these types of decisions to publishers of InPrivate Subscriptions. InPrivate Subscriptions are RSS feeds of Regular Expressions that specify sub-downloads to block or allow.

Microsoft isn’t the only one working on advanced privacy features. Mozilla revealed that similar features may be included in the Firefox 3.1 browser, which is scheduled to be released later this year, or early next year.