Privacy Groups Mull 'Do Not Track' List for Internet

Technical Writing Geek writes with a Reuters story about a collection of privacy groups looking to set up a 'Do Not Track' list online, similar to the 'Do Not Call' list meant to dissuade telemarketing. "Computer users should be notified when their Web surfing is tracked by online advertisers and Web publishers, argue the Consumer Federation of America, the World Privacy Forum and the Center for Democracy and Technology, among other groups in a coalition promoting the idea. Rather than burying privacy policies in fine print, companies should also disclose them more fully and provide easier ways to opt out, the groups said. The organizations submitted the proposals to the Federal Trade Commission, ahead of the consumer watchdog agency's workshop on Nov. 1-2 to study the increasing use of tracking technology to target online ads.

Comments

Re:unrealistic goals

[morgan_greywolf]

Agreed. Completely unrealistic. If you want to opt out of being tracked by advertisers, here are the only steps you need to perform:

• Download Firefox
• Install the Adblock Plus and NoScript extensions
• T
  
• Go to Edit | Preferences or Tools | Options (depending on platform) and go to the Privacy tab. Uncheck 'Accept cookies from sites'.
  
• Click Exceptions. Add in all the sites that you use that need cookies to work right (online banking, Slashdot, etc.)

Tada! You're done. Now you can't be tracked (unless you specifically want to be).

on a "do not spam" list

[khallow]

The largest lesson in emal spamming has been that they'll send spam to anything resembling an email. They don't care where it came from or how and why they got it. So as I see it the only value of a "do not spam" list is that it will contain a lot of active email addresses. That is gold to spammers and I think anyone who believes such a list will reduce spamming (rather than have the opposite effect) is sorely deluded.