Chrome To Get 'Do Not Track'

puddingebola tips news that support for the 'do-not-track' privacy setting will soon be coming to Google Chrome. The feature was implemented for Chromium v23.0.1266.0 in a recent revision. Google has said DNT will make it into the public release of Chrome by the end of year. This will bring Chrome up to speed with Firefox, which has had it for a while, and IE 10, which will have it turned on by default. As for why Google is the last of the three do implement it, the LA Times points out a post earlier this year from Google's Susan Wojcicki: 'There’s been a lot of debate over the last few years about personalization on the web. We believe that tailoring your web experience — for example by showing you more relevant, interest-based ads, or making it easy to recommend stuff you like to friends — is a good thing.'"

Comments

Translation

[RaceProUK]

"DNT will hurt our advertising revenue"

Re:Translation

[betterunixthanunix]

Microsoft is planning on destroying the standard/convention by not implementing it properly in IE; e.g. by Default pretending that the user has opted out by supplying a DNT 1 value; instead of the user taking no preference.

This sounds like the right thing to me. If most users are unaware of how pervasive the tracking is these days, then it should be opt-in. Let people who at least know that there is something to opt in to make a decision about opting in.

Of course, then the web advertisers would just ignore DNT. Which is what will happen anyway.

The real answer is not to politely ask these companies to stop tracking us; what reason do they have to care about our wishes? The real answer is to make ABP a standard feature in browsers, with a whitelist option for users who actually want advertising (but which warns them that advertisers will track their browsing habits -- with clear, unambiguous, easy-to-understand wording). We made spam filtering a default for email, and then spam became manageable; we should make ad blocking the default for the web, until it is brought back down to reasonable levels.

I have no sympathy for web advertisers. They should be excluded from the debate, just like spammers were excluded.

This is the IP evil bit all over again

[Dwedit]

This is basically the "Evil Bit" all over again. It's completely non-binding and ineffective.

What actually works is using Adblock and Requestpolicy, because that actually prevents third party tracking.

Re:Pointless?

[plover]

No, advertisers have no business value in taking this seriously, and every incentive to find ways around it. Advertisers know that targeted advertising is both more effective and less offensive than random advertising. And today, in order to provide targeted advertising, tracking provides an overall picture of an individual's tastes and habits.

Targeted advertising will continue, but in a different fashion. Instead of tracking you at an individual level, I predict they'll find ways to identify surfers at an aggregate level. Perhaps cookies will contain your advertising preferences instead of your identity. If you visit a few car forums every so often, the advertiser might store the CAR=2 value in your cookie, if you visit Etsy a lot they'll store CRAFT=5, and if you visit a political campaign donation site, they'll store SUCKER=9. Then, as you surf the web, if you're identified as a SUCKER>3, the ads will feature Vote Rombama. They're not tracking you personally or identifying your habits, but they're still targeting you.

The bigger problem, and why I think Google was the big holdout, is Google Analytics. They don't use the tracking data just for advertising. They sell information about shopping habits to marketers. If you search for "stereo reviews", then click the links to stereo-reviews.com and hifiworld.com, then buy a Coby home stereo for $299 from shopping.com, they can provide that data to stereo retailers around the net: people who buy overpriced crap surf believe the information on stereo-reviews.com and hifiworld.com. Killing tracking kills that intelligence business.

IE10 DNT is NOT on by default

[benjymouse]

The user is presented with a "setup" screen at which he/she can choose "express" or "advanced" setup.

The screen *clearly* spells out that *if* you choose express settings then DNT will be switched on.

You are confounding default settings (settings which take effect unless you explicitly go through a change) with a *choice* of grouped settings.

Yes, the settings are grouped. Yes, the users may not know what exactly could be the benefits of tracking (or the benefits to Google?).

But, the user actually *do* make a choice. It is not like the screen merely says "express or advanced?". It actually outlines what will be set.

To claims that this is "default" and that the user has not made a choice is simply wrong. It is the *easy* choice, but that is not the same.

Advertisers and their shills like Roy Fielding may not like the fact that the process does stack the deck against tracking as it makes the DNT the easy choice. To me that is just "right back at ya!". Thanks for all your toolbars, btw. But no thanks.