Is Microsoft Edge Quietly Tracking You? Bing API URL Sharing Raises Red Flags

Microsoft Corporation's MSFT Edge browser's behavior is under scrutiny as it is reportedly sending URLs visited by users to its Bing API website. 

What Happened: Reddit users were the first to notice that Microsoft Edge’s latest version seems to send a request to bingapis.com, containing the full URL of the majority of pages visited by the user. 

This raised major red flags in terms of users' privacy and prompted an investigation by Microsoft in response, according to The Verge.

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While Reddit users (during their initial post) were unable to explain why Microsoft Edge was sending users' visited URLs to its Bing API site, the report spoke with Rafael Rivera, a software engineer and EarTrumpet developer to find out the cause behind it. 

According to the report, the reason behind this privacy violation is a poorly implemented "creator follow" feature in Edge, which originally intended to notify Bing of visits to specific pages like YouTube, but ended up sending almost every domain. 

Microsoft is aware of these reports and is reportedly investigating the issue, a spokesperson told Benzinga over email.

For the unversed, the “creator follow” feature in Microsoft Edge allows users to follow their favorite content creators on YouTube and the web. The report noted that disabling this feature would prevent URLs from being sent to bingapis.com.

To turn it off, go to Settings, then select the Privacy, Search and Services tab. Scroll down to Services and toggle off the option that says “Show suggestions to follow creators in Microsoft Edge." 

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