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Google Adds To Mozilla's Push For 'Do Not Track'
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."
... I love cookies!
Cookie cookie cookie!
NOM NOM NOM!
Didn't they undergo a massive cave-in to special interests?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I know, lots of tech implementation problems, but Google's fast turn-around indicates that someone between Mozilla and Google is on the same page.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
maybe all our cries for privacy are having some effect.
Why don't we just skip to the part where everyone has enabled this feature.
who pioneered use of the first persistent cookie (set to expire in 2038, I believe?)
Getting some of your info tracked is not all bad. I could see where it leaves technical specs of your computer and begins to geolocate you without your permission or cross-reference you with social networks etc... Buut, at the same time none of us likes to see advertisements that flash telling you to punch a monkey after taking some Viagra. In an ideal world, you would see LESS advertisements if advertisement blockers didn't exist, and you would see more relevant ads that would benefit you from clicking it by having your information tracked. However, this is in an ideal world and it just doesn't work in this world.
Personally, I have ABP installed and if it's a website I support ie: Slashdot, I'll disable ABP. I may not click on the ads but just viewing them somehow gives back a little bit.
Is this just another part of the battle with Adobe, who owns Omniture and competes with Google Analytics?
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
The Linux Kernel might never make it to 3.0.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
and is called Ghostery. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ghostery/
Does this plug-in/add-on also stop all tracking of Google properties?
Not just the google ads, but also all those other google sites like oh, I don't know, googleapis, youtube etc?
Just because they're not serving ads doesn't mean that they don't or can't track you.
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
So, Google, a company that makes its money selling ad space, is distributing software to help block advertising? That seems either incredibly counter-intuitive, or incredibly cynical ("no one will use it except people who know how to do it anyway, so why not get some good press"). It'll be interesting to see which it really is, but I'm going to have to lean towards cynical on this one for the time being (call me cynical...).
You think your cookies and tracking are harmless, or even good, but as you can see, very powerful backlashes form which will hurt everyone because you abused your privelege, and cross-site cookies tracking is a privelege. I understand the need for advertising tracking to improve the value of the ad to the ad buyer and to me, the ad "consumer". But considering it's becoming a hodge-podge and used to make people very uncomfortable, there was an inevitible push back.
You lost the Javascript/flash wars because you allowed abusive banner ads. Sure, you got a quick hit for a year or two, but for how long until AdBlocker has become de rigeur for the heavy Internet browser? So by trying to be too flashy and too in your face, you lost all right to use Javascript/flash for your ads.
Now you are losing the cookie battle too.
Just try not to be evil and respect people's wishes. Is it really that hard? Really?
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
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.
What if they didn't need cookies anymore? I'm sure if enough people with an agenda to get rich(er) got together they could track anyone and everyone...given enough resources and 'affiliates'. I never logged no-script blocks, but doesn't seem too implausible to get a small number of ad providers together to cooperate for massive data gathering gain.
I don't know. All I do know is when Mega-Corps bring me flowers and tell me they're my buddy, I tend to look around to see what's in the other hand.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
So, a company that became huge and rich from advertising and trying to "judge" us based on our clicks is now acting like They don't do it? Unless you are actually told about stuff like this then it is safe to say that Google is no better. I mean, come on, look at all the tracking cookies and stuff it uses, and you have to search for a way to disable them, and how many people will do that? That is like me being a bank robber, and then telling others to not rob banks and also tell some banks that ONLY if they talk to me ahead of time, I will not rob from them.
I tell you what Google, how about you stop using them yourself before you act like you are a huge activist behind getting rid of them.
The world is how you make it
What is the link with tfa ?
I am not convinced that "opting out of behavioral advertising" is the same as "do not track". The page describing the opt-out initiative contains the following sentence:
In some cases, automated systems will continue to collect other data about browser visits but that data will no longer be used to deliver interest-based advertising to the user.
This suggests that tracking might still happen, but the ads served will not be based on the collected information if you opt out. That does not sound like much of an improvement in online privacy.
interesting rant but next time, please try to post it on a related article
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
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.
Is this going to affect sites that use a cookie to maintain session state? If so, let me be the first to say: No. Thank. You. I cannot afford to reengineer all my sites.
Monitor bandwidth usage on IIS6 in real-time: http://www.waetech.com/services/iisbm/
With me, that makes 3. a strong push for privacy. add yourselves too, so that it will make 4, 5, and n.
this post, may or may not contain sarcasm. i may or may not be giving 2 cents to anyone that may prove that way, or otherwise. if the world is in the eye of a fish, then it means we have a problem. now beat it. there is nothing to see here - all mj impressions are done, all britney spears songs are sung, all ships are sunk, all your bases are owned, we shall never flag or flail. we shall fight on the routers, we shall fight on the switches, we shall fight on the hubs, we shall never surrender ! and then, they will say, this, was internet's finest hour !!!
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So, a company that became huge and rich from advertising and trying to "judge" us based on our clicks is now acting like they don't do it?
No, they aren't. As noted in the blog post announcing the "Keep My Opt Outs" extensions, Google, two years ago, "made available, for all major browsers, a downloadable browser plugin that enables you to permanently opt out of Google’s advertising cookie, even if you deleted all your browser’s cookies."
They aren't pretending they don't do anything. They are quite open that they do it by default, they provided a cookie-based mechanism to opt-out of it, and they later provided a mechanism for durably opting-out of it.
"Keep My Opt-Outs" is an extension that provides durable opt-out by default functionality for all advertising/tracking systems that support similar opt-out mechanisms.
That is like me being a bank robber, and then telling others to not rob banks and also tell some banks that ONLY if they talk to me ahead of time, I will not rob from them.
If you assume that the use of tracking cookies is equivalent to robbery, which I think is, at best, a non-obvious position for which some argument should be presented.
I tell you what Google, how about you stop using them yourself before you act like you are a huge activist behind getting rid of them.
But Google isn't pretending to be an activist behind getting rid of them. Google, who has for some time provided a tool to durably opt-out of Google's tracking system, is now providing a tool to durably opt-out of an expanding set of third-party tracking systems as well. Its about supporting user choice in whether or not to participate in tracking, not about getting rid of tracking.
I know, lots of tech implementation problems, but Google's fast turn-around indicates that someone between Mozilla and Google is on the same page.
This isn't a response to Mozilla.
Both Google's actions with "Keep My Opt Outs" and Mozilla's "Do Not Track" header are responses to the FTC urging the industry to adopt do not track mechanisms (with the strong implication that, absent sufficient non-mandated progress in this direction, mandatory regulations would be imposed.)
Google already provided a similar mechanism for all major browsers to opt-out of Google's own tracking; the new extension -- initially available in Chrome but, per Google's announcement, being worked on for other browsers as well as released as open-source, extends similar durable opt-out to other tracking services (and is designed to update itself to include new services as they are added to its database.)
Opt out of major advertising networks: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp Opt out of doubleclick/google ads: http://optout.doubleclick.net/cgi-bin/optoutgoogle.pl
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
I seem to be on a bit of a Privoxy obsession of late. It comes and goes like a biorhythm. Privoxy goes a long way to help prevent tracking...like tracking by Google, youtube, blogspot, ytimg...oh wait, they're all one and the same.
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.
Well, except that it would almost certainly be struck down by the courts, and its not even the subject that the FTC has been looking at. A more reasonable FTC order on the subject actually at issue, which mandated opt-out of ad personalization via behavioral tracking wouldn't have nearly that effect on Google (they'd still be able to serve ads, and even contextual ads.)
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.
The opt-out mechanisms (both the one that Google has had for years for their own tracking, and the new one that they just released for other people's tracking) are for behavioral tracking that supports personalized ads. They aren't opt-outs for advertisements at all. Its tracking, not advertising, that you are opting out of (and that's also the issue that the FTC has asked the industry to do something about if it doesn't want the FTC to step in -- behavioral tracking, not advertising.)
Having a flag in the header is nice. But the real question is, would Firefox (and Chrome) add "no signature/generic signature" mode, where headers sent out to the server get synchronized to the lowest common denominator for a large set of users?
You know, so that browser can't be sufficiently identified by the headers alone. And http://panopticlick.eff.org would say "Browser plugin details: one in 2", and "User Agent" one in, say, 10. Plus the heck with system fonts.
Hyperom.com
So, Google, a company that makes its money selling ad space, is distributing software to help block advertising?
Nope, this software does not (and does not claim to) do anything to "block advertising".
It blocks behavioral tracking which supports personalizing advertising, which means that when using it, the ads you see will not be personalized based on tracking you, but you'll still get just as many ads, they'll just be generic rather than personalized based on behavior.
Google has provided a durable opt-out of this kind for years with their own advertising (which is supported on multiple browsers), this new tool extends that to include other advertisers that have adopted an industry-standard mechanism for supporting opt-outs.
Didn't they undergo a massive cave-in to special interests?
We can argue all day about that, but it doesn't really matter since the organization that is putting on pressure for do-not-track mechanisms is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), not the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that recently adopted open internet ("net neutrality") rules that have been panned by some neutrality advocates as "worse than nothing" in terms of restricting ISP abuses and by some ISPs and Tea Party types as a totalitarian takeover of the internet by government.
Is this going to affect sites that use a cookie to maintain session state?
No. For more info, see the page for the extension.
What is this belief that advertising requires tracking? It doesn't. It never has. Do advertisers like traking? Sure. Do the require it? No. If all user tracking were stopped today, there would still be advertisers paying to put ads on Slashdot. They would determine what ads to put up the same way they do on TV and in magazines. They would put ads that would be most likely to appeal to the consumers of the product being offered. In fact, Google might make MORE money if tracking were stopped. They would still be selling the ad space, but their customers would no longer have an expectation of getting detailed info on the end users. Thus, same revenue, and less work for Google. Less work means more profit.
The same can be said for Mozilla. By implementing a feature like the header, they can choose how they want to provide this kind of improvement to users. On the other hand, if they wait around for the FCC to force a decision, they might get locked into a method that Microsoft developed (with licensing costs of course), a method large ISPs like AT&T or TimeWarner prefer (ISP provided advertising like television), or something completely out of the blue that will get held up in court proceedings for decades.
Being first out of the gate on this lets Mozilla set the bar that everyone else has to match or beat, and gives them strong leverage if mandatory solutions start being discussed.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
"Why don't we just skip to the part where everyone has enabled this feature."
Why don't we scrap the idea and have opt-IN tracking instead. You know, like how spam is UNSOLICITED stuff? Anything less on websites represents a loss of rights from what we have with email -- and that's pretty dire already.
Don't Ghostery/Beef Taco for Firefox do the same thing? Or did I misread something?
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
...maybe I'm just ignorant on this but doesn't NoScript do this already by blocking the sites period? (if you choose)
I think you are oversimplifying. Advertisers have always tracked and have always liked to track. Everything depends on the demographics of the medium where the ads will appear, and the demographics are the product of tracking, even back in the old days. Today they want to track everything because 1) they can, and 2) this allows them to focus ads more sharply than ever before.
Now you can tell with a high degree of probability that an end user is on the market for size 7 women's lavender-colored running shoes with a digital calorie counter and striped shoelaces. Advertisers of such shoes would kill their grandmothers for that kind of data.
First time poster, long time reader. I have been wondering why more people don't poison cookies rather than blocking them. Its relatively easy to open the sql database that firefox uses and replace numbers and strings with random similar values, I'm sure it could be automated. It seems like it would be better to make tracking companies data worthless, rather than simply blocking it. I wonder if there is a way to trade tracking cookies (obviously some cookies shouldn't be shared)?
"Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 1,379,292 tested so far. Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 20.4 bits of identifying information." -Panopticlick
I'm thinking opt-out of tracking by cookies, etc., is a throwaway. Google et al no longer need those technologies.
> people resort to these measures because web advertising has become
> abusive because they desperately want attention.
I'm just a market force. You want a market mechanism? Equilibrium = ads + abuse + ad networks drive by attacks - ad blocker - web bug blocker - flash blocker + advertiser rants + advertiser counter tactics - ridicule - Element Hiding Helper - capitulation + flailing - demoralize = Detente? Bring on the sixth republic.
all the troubles on the planet will vanish when we all do that wont they. (following text is all in capital letters) down with grammar nazizm !! down with old people pushing it on young people !!!
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X-ARE YOU TALKIN' TO ME?