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Apache Patch To Override IE 10's Do Not Track Setting
hypnosec writes "A new patch for Apache by Roy Fielding, one of the authors of the Do Not Track (DNT) standard, is set to override the DNT option if the browser reaching the server is Internet Explorer 10. Microsoft has by default enabled DNT in Internet Explorer 10 stating that it is to 'better protect user privacy.' This hasn't gone down well with ad networks, users and other browser makers. According to Mozilla, the DNT feature shouldn't be either in an active state or an inactive state until and unless a user specifically sets it. Along the same lines is the stance adopted by Digital Advertising Alliance. The alliance has revealed that it will only honor DNT if and only if it is not switched on by default. This means advertisers will be ignoring the DNT altogether no matter how a particular browser is set up. The DNT project has another member – Apache. It turns out that Microsoft's stance is like a thorn to Apache as well. Fielding has written a patch for the web server titled 'Apache does not tolerate deliberate abuse of open standards.' The patch immediately sparked a debate, which instigated Fielding to elaborate on his work: 'The only reason DNT exists is to express a non-default option. That's all it does. [...] It does not protect anyone's privacy unless the recipients believe it was set by a real human being, with a real preference for privacy over personalization.'"
There was content on the web before there were ads, dipshit.
Anyone who thinks we can't have one without the other is wrong, because that state has already happened.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Why yes it was there was content, not people telling each other what they had for dinner and when they had a BM. When you searched for information about a piece of hardware you got the manual and other useful information not the marking drivel. The noise ratio of the internet has gone up dramatically as it's become more and more commercial.
No sir I dont like it.
Choosing to ignore a standard is not what they should be doing either.
To be honest this is kind of a ridiculous standard anyway. The way I read it, it seems to me the sites I would least want to track me are the exact sites that are most likely to ignore DNT completely. This standard reminds me of the Evil Bit RFC.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Tracking should be something users should have to opt in to, not out of.
The alliance has revealed that it will only honor DNT if and only if it is not switched on by default.
Dear Digital Advertising Alliance - No one* wants you to track them. MSIE enabling DNT by default means nothing more radical than defaulting US releases of Windows to use English.
Since you have decided you know better than we do, I will therefore block all ads and tracking technologies until you make them "opt-in" only.
And then I will opt out.
* Morons who consider Facebook as somehow "better" than the worst of you marketing parasites aside.
An optional flag that has no enforcement mechanism is just asking for government intervention. In any case I don't think DNT will survive, and something else will come in to make ad companies rethink their strategy.
Do you remember the debate about blocking pop-up windows? Very similar complaints from advertisers who said they were 'financing the development of the web' (what a bunch of bullshit, they are just profiting from it). Yet every browser blocks them by default now. I await the day when (tracking) ads will be blocked by default by most major browsers. It's time to take the web back. HTTP is meant to be a stateless protocol.
I guess hell is freezing over now because I am forced to side with Microsoft on this one. I can't think of anyone who actually wants to be tracked like a bear with a radio collar. The express install has DNT as a default setting because most people really don't want to be tracked. For the few that do, they can choose custom settings and not choose DNT.
I will be ripping that patch OUT of any Apache I install. If it were a physical thing, I would then piss on it and burn it. It is deeply disrespectful to the end user. All it does is lend credence to the idea that the whole DNT thing was a big fat LIE by the ad networks (liars for hire).
Ad-block FTW
Pretty much, along with cookie blockers. Anyone who doesn't use one on the internet these days is either mad or insane. Perhaps both. I don't care that site users are whining and crying that they're losing revenue, it's stuff like what was mentioned in the article itself(too long to repeat) that ensure that I'm going to keep using them. Plus the long list of abusive ads themselves that like to run with their volume at 11, or inject malware.
I'd be happy with ads, no really. If companies weren't being so stinking abusive over it. I'd call the entire thing an abusive relationship, you even get companies promising "we don't do this, don't worry we've changed." And next time, they're right back to doing it. Sounds familiar doesn't it?
Om, nomnomnom...