diff --git a/js/core/core.data.js b/js/core/core.data.js
index b96969238..5db24b28f 100644
--- a/js/core/core.data.js
+++ b/js/core/core.data.js
@@ -618,7 +618,13 @@ function _fnGetRowElements( settings, row, colIdx, d )
 	var cellProcess = function ( cell ) {
 		if ( colIdx === undefined || colIdx === i ) {
 			col = columns[i];
-			contents = $.trim(cell.innerHTML);
+			//if specified, ignore additional markup and only store innerText as data
+			if(col.stripHTML){
+				contents = (cell.innerText)? cell.innerText.trim(): '';
+			}
+			else{
+				contents = (cell.innerHTML)? cell.innerHTML.trim(): '';
+			}
 
 			if ( col && col._bAttrSrc ) {
 				var setter = _fnSetObjectDataFn( col.mData._ );
diff --git a/js/model/model.defaults.columns.js b/js/model/model.defaults.columns.js
index 0d10b4305..834ebc21f 100644
--- a/js/model/model.defaults.columns.js
+++ b/js/model/model.defaults.columns.js
@@ -703,6 +703,35 @@ DataTable.defaults.column = {
 	 */
 	"sName": "",
 
+	
+	/**
+	 * Defines whether the cell data includes the HTML content or not.  
+	 * This means that when the data contents of the cell are set, the innerText property is used rather than innerHTML.
+	 * 
+	 * This is useful in environments where table data may be embedded in multiple levels of HTML after the <td> element for two reasons:-
+	 * 	-DataTables extensions such as searchPanes can compare cell data without comparing HTML data.
+	 * 	-Performance increase for processing tables which have a large amount of additional markup as less data is saved to memory.		 * 
+	 * 
+	 * @name DataTable.defaults.column.stripHTML
+	 * @type bool
+	 * @default false
+	 * 
+	 *  @example
+	 *		// Using `columnDefs`
+	 *    $(document).ready( function() {
+	 *      $('#example').dataTable( {
+	 *        "columnDefs": [
+	 *         {
+	 *         	stripHTML: true,
+	 *         	targets : '_all'
+	 *         }
+	 *        ]
+	 *      } );
+	 *    } );
+	 *
+	 */
+	"stripHTML": false  
+
 
 	/**
 	 * Defines a data source type for the ordering which can be used to read