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FTC Wants Browsers To Block Online Tracking
storagedude writes "The FTC wants a do-not-track mechanism that would allow Web users to opt out of online behavioral tracking, similar to the national do-not-call registry. The agency's preferred method for accomplishing this would be a browser-based tool that would give users the option of blocking data collection across the Web. The only problem is that the agency may not have the authority to require this, thanks to concerted lobbying efforts by the advertising industry. The first step may just be voluntary measures, to be released this fall."
There's already an opt-out option:
https://www.torproject.org/
Visit https://bridges.torproject.org/ to grab some bridge IPs and
add this to your torrc file:
UseBridges 1
paste the bridges you obtained from the url above here starting
with the word bridge and following with the IP, one on each line,
like so:
Bridge 1.2.3.4
Bridge 5.6.7.8
Need help with Tor? Speak to the developers (and users) directly:
irc.oftc.net #tor
Or join the Tor mailing list: click the first url above, click
Docs at the top of the page, scroll down for the mailing list
information.
If this is true:
"The FTC wants a do-not-track mechanism that would allow Web users to
opt out of online behavioral tracking, similar to the national do-not-call
registry." they could encourage the use of Tor on their website, possibly
running some tor nodes themselves to aid the Tor network.
That's what I thought, too, but google Quantcast and zombie cookies and you'll find out that isn't necessarily true.
Flash cookies FTL! And when that starts to fail more, advertisers can always rely on server-side stateful tracking using whatever identifying tokens they can get(ip address, user agent, etc) to track users. The only real way to stop tracking is to compel the trackers to stop trying. Even elaborate measures like TOR can and have failed to completely prevent tracking.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/
Waiting for the other shoe to...
i have every right to say what happens on my machine
additionally, i have every right to insist you change your behavior, such as with logs, if suitable logical reason can be found that my rights could potentially be abused by your practices
in other words, there are principles that govern society, and no one is above those principles. and claims to be exempt from those principles, for reasons of trade and commerce, is the road to hell
understand that, or be the enemy of freedom
individual liberty is not trumped by corporate interest, despite all the paid legal whores and assorted apologists to the contrary
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You enable cookies only for sites you want to log in to.
To complete you privacy you have Flash off by default and you set a minimal UA string.
The last two currently require plugins, but if browsers had built in click to run for plugins and sent minimal UA strings (just browser and version) be default the problem would largely be solved.