Microsoft has launched an advertising campaign attacking the privacy changes announced by Google.

The text-heavy ‘Putting People First’ ad, which has so far run in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and New York Times, claims that Google’s consolidation of its privacy policy is just to attract advertisers with better data on its users.

Hotmail, Bing, Office 365 and Internet Explorer are then given as alternatives by Microsoft to using Google products.

However, Google has now struck back on its public policy blog, with a post entitled ‘Busting myths about our approach to privacy.’