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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.'"
If they don't change their ways, they may get another strongly worded letter about it!
I am officially gone from
Think this ties in well with another story from a bit earlier: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/06/20/0421210/cnet-idc-find-rapid-increase-in-behavioral-data-tracking
-1 troll is not supposed to be used simply because you don't agree
why don't they make it into a law that you have to have a "TRACK ME PLEASE" cookie for it to be legal to track your flow through multiple domains..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
While I applaud MS for their privacy efforts, I am cynical, and I largely see this as a marketing move on their behalf. They've seen how Google has copped some flak over privacy concerns, and it's obvious they want to position themselves as the privacy-respecting alternative. But I have no doubt that if Bing and Microsoft's cloud services become as popular as Google's, they will mine every last bit of data they can get their hands on.
They're all as bad as each other, says I.
Does anyone have any idea why the W3C opposed this? It seems like a no-brainer.
Never thought I would stand with MS over the W3C, but there you have it.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Unless they're planning on adding the force of law to the DNT bit, all this will do is make advertisers ignore it (and, they could argue, rightfully so since they couldn't be certain that people turned it on of their own volition).
Microsoft could pop up a dialog asking, but even then, who exactly is going to click "yes, track me"? Perhaps they should get together with some people from the advertising industry to come up with some fair copy that explains the benefits (targeted ads mean that you receive ads that will more likely interest you, after all) and drawbacks of cross-domain tracking, to ensure a semi-educated choice on the part of users.
If they just turn it on and don't ask about it though, expect it to be yet another technology extinguished by poor Microsoft engineering decisions. (I was kinda hoping we were past that, guys.)
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
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.
Chrome just overtook IE in marketshare and Google uses Chrome to track user's browsing habits for the purpose of targeted advertising. Making the Do-Not-Track policy the default for web browsers would hurt Google a lot more than it would hurt Microsoft, not to mention drastically reduce Google's incentive to continue pumping money into Chrome's development. While I like the idea of not being tracked by default, I hope it doesn't cost me future development of my favorite browser.
Re-read my post. It's not what is being sent, it is what's being kept and tracked.
Look at the protocol. They can't keep more than is in there.
Because their job is to help standardize browser features?
Look, all specs can always be ignored by an implementation. The only things preventing that are actual legislation to the contrary, public embarrasment, and desire for interoperability.
The third of these is not an issue here. Making DNT default undermines the second (because it becomes easier for advertisers to justify ignoring it in the court of public opinion). So unless there's motion on the first option (legislation), making DNT default just reduces its usefulness.
Which is way more than what your cookies gives away, including your complete list of software installed, MS specific information on licensing, and other bits of information which gives Microsoft the ability to track you via the IP address used to contact the Windows Update servers.
So how much of this is being kept, and for how long? Would you care to share?
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