Microsoft Wins Congressional Backing For Do-Not-Track Default In IE10

An anonymous reader writes "Thought Do Not Track was strictly a geeks' issue? Think again. After Microsoft was slapped down for enabling DNT by default in Internet Explorer 10, the co-chairs of the US's Congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus have sent a strongly-worded letter to the W3C urging it to reconsider. As webdev360.com points out, it's an interesting (unprecedented?) example of Congress interacting with the standards body: 'Whether members of the [working group] will take kindly to the Representatives' interference remains to be seen. Ed Markey's legislative director, Joseph Wender, has brought the letter to the attention of the group's mailing list, but, as of the time of writing, he hasn't received any replies.'"

Comments

Re:if they care about it so much

[buchner.johannes]

Mozilla discussed that DNT would have no value if enabled by default -- https://blog.mozilla.org/privacy/2011/11/09/dnt-cannot-be-default/

Frankly, it becomes meaningless if we enable it by default for all our users. Do Not Track is intended to express an individual’s choice, or preference, to not be tracked. It’s important that the signal represents a choice made by the person behind the leopard and not the software maker, because ultimately it’s not Firefox being tracked, it’s the user.

Microsoft will undermine DNT if they enable it for everyone.

Re:Why did W3C oppose this to begin with?!?!?

[FearTheDonut]

They're opposed to it, because it is perceived that if "Do Not Track" is the default, advertising companies would simply ignore the setting and track people anyway.

Re:Do Not Track for Windows Update

[tgd]

While playing closed-minded open-source Microsoft-bashing zealot on Slashdot is, in the eyes of many here, a route to being cool -- if you want to know, you could always use Google, Bing, or just run Fiddler and look for yourself.

The protocol is fully documented by Microsoft and not hard to find if you have some keyword ninja skills and a search engine.

Re:Makes Sense

[Justin_Schuh]

Google uses Chrome to track user's browsing habits for the purpose of targeted advertising.

This is simply not true and never has been. If you are interested in the facts, the Chrome Privacy Team thoroughly explains every feature that can be configured to exchange information with external services: http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/privacy.html

Re:if they care about it so much

[ArsonSmith]

it is 100% optional to follow the "Do not track" flag. If it's on by default it'll be ignored by default. If it's only on by a % of people that care then it will have a better chance of being followed.