Slashdot Mirror
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 must be a FF extension that can do just that by now. I can't imagine that there are no paranoid nerds that haven't thought of this.
And if there is no FF extension then the required functionality is probably impossible to do browser-side.
Actually I am wondering how they track behaviour, and what a browser can do to prevent it. I can think of a few bits:
- Cookies. The obvious one. Third-party cookies especially. Can be blocked in FF and other browsers for more than a decade already.
- Referrer tags in URLs. Sometimes useful - especially for sites to see where visitors originate - but also for the end user. E.g. after a Google search you go to some web page that then highlights your search terms. Seems trivial to block in your browser as your browser puts the referrer tag in the http request.
- IP address. Naturally public information. Can not be blocked, ever. Merely obfuscated by using tor or so.
- Browser ID. Can easily be faked. But is usually constant for a user, allowing them to be traced anyway using this and the IP address. Also between cooperating web sites. And of course third-party ad providers who in turn can follow IP addresses over their customer's web sites. Those third parties can be (partly) blocked by e.g. AdBlock Plus, only partly as the visited web site can still give your info (IP address, page visited) to the ad company, even when the actual ads are blocked.
That's all that I can think of at the moment, there may be more ways to follow a user. But I don't see much that can be done on the browser-side to stop more tracking.
And how to you identify theses?
We run just a few sites and they are allow users to change how info is displayed and then track the user and make sure those changes are available across all sites. Would we qualify even if all of that is for internal and a few external users?
For do not call that was easy, you make a commercial cold call you qualify, if this was that easy then someone would of already addeded it or a plug in would be available.
So that we can still get valuable information from people who really don't care about that particular aspect of their privacy but are too lazy to check the box. It's the same logic as opt-out organ donation, which seems to be very successful.
similar to the Do-Not-Call registry
— which means that you need to identify exactly who you are so that the web site knows not to track you. Most trackers currently do not know who you are, just that you have visited some set of web sites. <irony>That will, of course, not be abused by anyone.</irony>
So their suggested cure is worse than the current disease.
Having a database of users is also heavily bureauocratic & sooner of later that list will get stolen.
A much simpler mechanism is to have a new HTTP header, eg Tracking with values of yes or no. True anonymity, not hard for the browser vendors to implement, light weight.
OK: it will be ignored, but so could the Do-Not-Call registry. Enforcement was always going to be the issue, does the FTC realise that the first letter of www stands for World, ie it has no legal right to control all of it ?
Tracking isn't studying data from your website accesses, it's forming profiles of a specific user over multiple websites, by "planting" a cookie or other means of identification.
The analogy would be the advertisements companies putting a RFID tag in your car, that would be detected by each billboard you happened to pass by. Would you be OK with that level of location tracking? I wouldn't.
Dilbert RSS feed
The reality that only government holds the special right to employ coercion against you, while the rest of us (including corporations) do not.
Sure they do, it's just a different form of coercion, namely economic coercion.
For instance, let's say you're living in a mining town. You can just about make ends meet by working in the mines, but haven't been able to squirrel away significant savings (your job gives you enough to keep a roof over your head, food on your plate, clothes on your back, and not much else). There aren't any other companies in the area hiring because it's an economic recession. Now, your boss tells you that you need to work an extra 10 hours a week without reporting it in order to keep your job. Your options are: (a) work the extra 10 hours effectively as slave labor, (b) move out of town, (c) unemployment, or (d) report the crime to somebody. Option b is more than you can afford. Option c leaves you homeless and starving. Option d means that your employer will retaliate by firing you (along with anyone else they think was involved) so it's equivalent to option d. So that leaves you with no choice but option a.
That exact scenario is a reality for millions of Americans (as well as workers in other countries) - read up on wage theft. And think about the fact that the only recourse someone in that situation potentially has is government regulation.
I am officially gone from