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An Overview of the Do Not Track Debate
jonathanmayer writes "The Verge is carrying an accurate and accessible overview of the Do Not Track debate. Quoting: 'With the fate of our beloved internet economy allegedly at stake, perhaps it's a good time to examine what Do Not Track is. How did the standard come to be, what does it do, and how does it stand to change online advertising? Is it as innocuous as privacy advocates make it sound, or does it stand to jeopardize the free, ad-supported internet we've all come to rely on?' The issues surrounding Do Not Track can be difficult to understand, owing to rampant rhetoric and spin. This article unpacks the tracking technology, privacy concerns, economic questions, and political outlook. Full disclosure: I'm quoted."
you want me to read about privacy on a website with no less than 4 web bugs and tracking code up the wazoo, not to mention all their shitty adverts
get off my web
As I remember it, things were expanding quite quickly even before every little click was tracked. I imagine things might slow down with Do-Not-Track, but they will keep growing.
Save early, Save often
DNT is useless. You WILL be tracked if you give sites information that is useful in tracking you. The very best you can do is chase the tracking out of your legal jurisdiction and into other countries or underground.
The only effective way to stop tracking is client side. It's like the analog of MMPORG games, where the client cannot be trusted, because it must be assumed to be in malicious hands. Here, the server cannot be trusted not to track you, because it must be assumed to be in malicious hands.
DNT is actively harmful, because it makes tech-illiterates think that if they set it in their browser, they will not be tracked. We have already seen that is not the case.
Who cares? Adblock; Ghostery; RandomUserAgent; and always, always, ALWAYS lie when asked for things like your DOB or zip code.
Have fun fulling your DB with useless crap trying to "track" me, Marketers.
Team Marketing is on tactical thermonuclear crack. I don't know where the hell they got it; but damn if it isn't the good stuff. Consider the below, from a 'Rachel Thomas' working on behalf of the "Direct Marketing Association":
"Marketing fuels the world. It is as American as apple pie and delivers relevant advertising to consumers about products they will be interested at a time they are interested. DNT should permit it as one of the most important values of civil society. Its byproduct also furthers democracy, free speech, and – most importantly in these times – JOBS. It is as critical to society – and the economy – as fraud prevention and IP protection and should be treated the same way.
Marketing as a permitted use would allow the use of the data to send relevant offers to consumers through specific devices they have used. The data could not be used for other purposes, such as eligibility for employment, insurance, etc. Thus, we move to a harm consideration. Ads and offers are just offers – users/consumers can simply not respond to those offers – there is no associated harm.
Further, DNT can stop all unnecessary uses of data using choice and for those consumers who do not want relevant marketing the can use the persistent Digital Advertising Alliance choice mechanism. This mechanism has been in place for 2 years."
Yes, she actually said that. In public.
Has got you covered... some what:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firegloves/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/betterprivacy/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/
Is it just me who's thought it f'in hilarious to be on a friends computer hit a website and get porn based ads & pop-ups? :)
If the economy depends on private corporations analyzing the behaviors of citizens, fuck the economy. Seriously, people will still buy the things they need without having ads thrown in their faces every 2 seconds.
The thing that pisses me off the most about most (even supposedly reputable) web sites these days, is the eye opener you get if you run NoScript. The fact that the home pages of supposedly reputable sites are trying to pull in javascript from like a dozen or more unrelated sites is just fucking inexcusable, and it seems to get worse every day.
Worse yet is that some of those simply don't work at all unless you resort to "Temporarily allow all from this page", in which case I tend to just bail and never go back. I mean seriously...WTF??? I can't tell you how that burns my ass.
Summary: Advertisers are assholes and do not give a fuck about what you want.
Did I miss anything?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
It's much shorter. :-)
Your post advocates a
(x) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting tracking. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work.
(x) Dude, fucking seriously. A checkbox to say "Hi marketers, please don't track me!"? What are you, on crack? You've got better odds walking through a bad neighborhood wearing gold chains and a "Please don't mug me" shirt.
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The article is based on the assumption that the total ad revenue of the industry would not be significantly less even if they have to show random ads to everybody again. The author thinks that the ad budgets does not really change, only they are spent on different methods. I have my experience which contradicts this assumption. We had a paid product and tested Google Adwords. The result was not good enough. We only managed to have a zero balance: the money we spent on ad was about the same as the additional revenue we got. At the end we have not started a real campaign. If the effectiveness of the ads were only a bit better, than obviously we were able to allocate a significant amount of money. So no, the assumption is not valid, the ad budgets does depend and may hugely depend on the effectiveness of the ad systems.
A few minutes of quiet reflection and the liberal application of common sense will result in the following:
Because a few minutes of your thinking are more valuable than the various workshops, meetings and discussions of the W3C Tracking Protection Working Group and all its associates and members?
You really think this wasn't discussed by a hundred people before the current draft was written? Really?
Nothing I've read has changed my conclusions one bit.
So what is it that you have read? Half-arsed magazine articles? Or have you read the actual papers of the actual W3C, the workgroup members, the various parties? Allow me to guess...
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Not set doesn't mean "ok to track." Yes, they will track you, but the difference from DNT:0 is when it's not set, they're tracking you without your consent (nobody said you're ok with it). With DNT:0, you are consenting.
And the difference between that and DNT:1 (where most of them also track you) is that when it's not set, they have plausible deniability that they resisted your preference. With DNT:1, you're not consenting and they can't credibly say "I didn't know you had a problem with that."
(Unless you're running MSIE10, in which case if you send DNT:1, they can say "I didn't know you had a problem with that.")
Maybe this is the best way to look at it. DNT is "plausible deniability by default." It's not about tracking; it's about the relationship, and it provides a previously-missing piece of the model, representing the level to which hostility has escalated.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Just taken the EFF test.
With JS enabled: 1 in 2 500 000 browsers have a similar configuration :(
With JS disabled: 1 in 70 000 :)
Thank you, NoScript ;) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/
If you don't want to be tracked, you want to be 1 in a million, not one in 100.
I got: Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 2,452,130 tested so far. Meaning if anyone sees my browser fingerprint at one place and then again at another place, they know it was the same browser.
My fingerprint showed up as unique both with and without NoScript. :(
I run the Zemana anti-logger program and it was somehow able to see that, which surprised me. With JS on, it's the huge numbers of fonts that give you away, especially if you have any kind of desk top publishing program or strange word processor installed.
I mean..
I realize network neutrality is the defacro norm (at least for the time being), but let's say backbone provider A has a peering agreement with downstream provider B, and advertising company C.
Downstream B gets lots of traffic through their pipe from advert company B, pumped into the through backbone connction A.
The adverts have to traverse intermediate networks to reach the "recipient".
That same 900kb of data takes bandwidth on many networks, and is not exactly free to transmit.
What I was asking, is if the amount of traffic sent by advertisers through downstream networks could be considered abusive. (Eg, what percentage of traffic is unsolicited advertisements lobbed at users, just for trying to use a web service, especially compared to the amount of data that web service would consume all by itself.)