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Google Adds To Mozilla's Push For 'Do Not Track'

Posted by Soulskill on from the lot-of-progress-for-one-day dept.

AndyAndyAndyAndy writes "In a morning blog post, Google announced the release of a Chrome plug-in called 'Keep My Opt-Outs,' which hopes to block all tracking cookies. Interestingly, it is released as open-source with the hopes that it will gain quick deployment on non-Chrome browsers and find a robust foothold against ads. The story is also covered at Computerworld, which has broader insight into the issue, looking at Google, Mozilla and Firefox, and seems to indicate more rapid change is looming — potentially from the FCC itself."

3 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. Of course Google wants this by barchibald · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If I were google, I'd be pretty psyched to be the only ad provider who can triangulate from search to ad delivery. Thats a real coup in terms of unique analytics for them. Between every page that has their ads on it, every site that uses their site analytics and every request that has google.com as the launch point (and access to http-referer information across all of these....it'd be hard to imagine an analytics company coming close to competing.

    There are many more desserts than just cookies.

  2. Re:Fast Turn-around by Un+pobre+guey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They are not on the same page. Blocking cookies is pointless. Robust all-knowing behavior tracking occurs on the server side. By implementing a header flag, Mozilla is ahead of the game. That flag covers any kind of tracking currently used or to be deployed in the future by asserting a generic end-user request always and uniformly. Blocking cookies addresses an obsolete tracking mechanism.

  3. Re:Google... and ads by Americano · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's also in Google's interests to implement weak voluntary controls rather than FTC-mandated strict controls that would more-directly impinge on Google's bottom line.

    An FTC ruling which dictates something along the lines of "You must default everybody to opted-out of all advertisements, and allow them to opt back in if they wish to," pretty much destroys Google's business overnight. "No need for the FTC to take action, since the browser makers have already provided a system to allow users to opt out of advertisements if they wish to," hurts a lot less.