Scheduled to be released this month, the new Internet Explorer Beta 2 is said to be fitted with three new privacy tools: “InPrivate Browsing"-if enabled, it prevents IE from saving browsing and searching history, cookies, form data and passwords and it also entails automatically clearing the browser cache at the end of each session, "InPrivate Blocking" and "InPrivate Subscription", which, according to The New York Times, “notifies users of third-party content that can track browsing history and subscribe to lists of sites to block, respectively.”

Nevertheless, the “InPrivate Browsing” tool is turning out to be the most controversial one, since many think it is merely a rabbit hole down to X-rated content land, thus the blunt “porn mode” label everybody’s is using in reference to it.

Andy Zeigler-IE program manager- explained, via a post on the team’s blog, as The New York Times informs the need for enhanced privacy procedures: "When we began planning IE8, we took a hard look at our customers' concerns about privacy on the Web. Many users are concerned about so-called 'over-the-shoulder privacy,' or the ability to control what their spouses, friends, kids, and co-workers might see. If you are using a shared PC, a borrowed laptop from a friend, or a public PC, sometimes you don't want other people to know where you've been.”

Sounds reasonable enough. Still, the competition seems to have yet another bone to pick with Microsoft. Mike Beltzner, Mozilla’s director of Firefox told The New York Times that “to lock everyone into a 'porn bucket' makes people who have alternate privacy needs think that they're doing something wrong.”

Thus, Mozilla has some privacy tools of its own up its sleeve, which might see the light of day in 2009. Their intention is to offer users a privacy mode that must be switched on beforehand: "We want users to not only be able to enter [a private browsing session], but tell the browser that they want to delete all evidence starting a couple of hours ago," Beltzner added to the aforementioned source.

So let the games begin. The hide-and-seek private data ones.