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Yahoo Will Ignore IE 10's "Do Not Track"

dsinc writes "And so it begins... Yahoo has made it official: it won't honor the Do Not Track request issued by Internet Explorer 10. Their justification? '[T]he DNT signal from IE10 doesn't express user intent" and "DNT can be easily abused.'" Wonder what percentage of users would rather be tracked by default.

12 of 360 comments (clear)

  1. Obviously by Skyshadow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is it really a surprise that a failing business like Yahoo! would ignore its users in an attempt to make money?

    Look, the obvious lesson here is that no business can be trusted to keep secrets. Also: Water is wet, fire is hot. Don't give out anything you don't want to get out there, no matter what some PHB promises you.

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  2. Re:Shocking by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I use flickr and mostly (same reason people stick with 'certain social networks') its because there are some really good people I stay in touch with. its a damned shame that flickr is also yahoo.

    I have quite a complex set of adblock filters for yahoo and they often get in the way when I try to do some editing in flickr. some dialogs take nearly a minute to pop up! god knows what jscript evil they are doing, but my systems just hangs and times out until their crap gives up and finally presents me with the dialog box I was trying to get (move photos into a group, etc). their STUPID gui programming interlaces too well with the ads and stuff that catches my filters, the site is nearly unusable. and its totally unusable without any filtering. lose/lose.

    its a shame yahoo has mostly died. we do need alternatives. but their mail is unusable on my system and flickr is mostly unusable if you try to do anything other than a simple upload and tag.

    hell, even dpreview (used to be a good photo site) has jumped the shark with their new reinvention of their web code. almost nothing works for me, there, now.

    what is it with webmasters and the desire to use the most broken coding they can get away with? this really is breaking the web. the web was NOT meant for your javascript 'catch me if you can!' bullshit. it really was not!

    --

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  3. *I* Rather be tracked by default by Quick+Reply · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It makes me feel good inside to know that I am creating revenue for the website that I visit, which helps cover the cost of providing that website. Tracking a user and giving targeting advertising increases the value of the advertising campaigns, which translates into more money for the website.

    If we didn't have this, the web is going to become subscription-only very quickly.

    Slashdot gives me the option to "Disable Advertising" for having positive Karma, but I choose not to use this.

    What is annoying, is that the tracking wouldn't be an issue if the online advertising industry would be more honest to consumers about their practices from be beginning so that it would have been accepted early on, and also not give online advertising a bad name by not tricking websites into displaying ads that the web developer has said not to, and also allowing intrusive or misleading advertising (like how many fake 'Download' buttons do you see on Download sites for example).

    1. Re:*I* Rather be tracked by default by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I agree with you yet I do have a very strict ad blocker in effect. Why, you ask?

      Because I do NOT want to reward pages that trick me into visiting them by allowing them to spam ads at me. Rather, I would prefer to damage them by increasing their bandwidth without getting them any ad revenue in turn. If enough people did it, such pages that hook onto common search queries without actually providing the relevant information would quickly cease to exist.

      If, and only if, a page offers me what I want, be it information, entertainment or just a joke, I go out of my way to enable their ads if, and only if, they don't slap me in the face with popups and more windows opening than the average person can close in a lifetime. If the ads are actually on topic (like Slashdot's are more often than not, interestingly) I will even click them to see what's on the other end of it.

      Ads are not bad by definition. Ads can actually be very informative, I would have never discovered a few games and other goodies I treasure if it was not for ads. They received their bad name by ad companies that thought it's a bright idea to make them annoying. Annoying ads don't work in the online world where I, not the ad company, decide what I'll get to see. Make ads informative and you'll see people will not only stop blocking them, they'll actually follow the link they provide to learn more about the product.

      Of course, for that to work you'd first of all need a product that people actually wanted and that doesn't need hard selling...

      --
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  4. Re:Shocking by rtfa-troll · · Score: 5, Interesting

    proactively tagged and tracked by their ISP and cell phone carrier who sell their information to the highest bidder.

    In the civilised world this is illegal and the mobile networks are legally required to provide proper privacy. In fact, employees occasionally go to jail for breaching telecom privacy rules. It does happen in some countries but that is an exception. There are plenty of us who would spend money to have that kind of privacy guarantee extended to internet connections.

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  5. Re:Shocking by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A voluntary standard that gets in the way of profits is a standard that will never be followed.

    Which is why it needs to be made law. In the EU companies now have to ask for permission to use cookies. The result is that when you visit web sites there is a notification bar or similar. It was derided when it came in but actually it has raised awareness of cookies and tracking a great deal, if nothing else.

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  6. Re:Shocking by sjames · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They followed it just fine. They allow the user to choose the common default configuration and CORRECTLY guessed that most commonly, people don't want to be tracked like an animal.

    If the user would like to be tracked, they may choose that as well. It's not like allowing tracking requires a registry hack.

  7. Re:Shocking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There are enough laws. We need a rule that if you want to enact a new law it must repeal five old ones as well as whatever else it is supposed to do.

    That is not a good rule, when all bad laws are removed the good ones will follow, eventually we will have anarchy.

    In my opinion it would be better if the parliament had to read trough the complete law at the beginning of every year.
    If it is too much for someone who gets paid to know the law then you can't expect the population to do it either. If there are too many laws it will be in the parliaments interest to remove the bad or outdated ones and consolidate different laws covering similar situation whenever possible.

    Perhaps it would be even better to have them cast a vote on every law to keep or remove it but I suspect that that will lead to situation where the law changes too much. I don't think that it is a good idea to change the laws too often, once a citizen knows the law he shouldn't have to relearn all of it every year.

  8. Re:Shocking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Advertisers realised they would be fucked so they changed the standard.

    No, advertisers doesn't get fucked with the no-tracking implemented. They will still be able to advertise and will still be able to place targeted ads on web-pages that have a specific theme like ads for computer related products on a gaming related page.
    The only thing this does is that they can't have the same advertisements follow me around wherever I go.

    I don't like to have Element 14 ads when I browse for porn and I certainly do not like to have porn ads when I browse for electronics.
    I am in completely different mindsets when I do the two different things and the targeted ads creates a connection between me being irritated and whatever they are advertising.

    The no-tracking might not be what advertisers wants but it is good for them too.
    It's the same way with your dog. He might not like the leash since it prevents him from chasing cars, this doesn't mean that chasing cars is good for him.

  9. Re:Shocking by deergomoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Am I in the minority by really not giving a shit about being tracked? It's not personally identifying and I'd rather be shown ads that are relevant than something I have no interest in. For example, a few weeks ago Slashdot were running Nexus 7 adverts. First ad I've clicked in 10 years or so.

  10. Re:Shocking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Which is why it needs to be made law. In the EU companies now have to ask for permission to use cookies. The result is that when you visit web sites there is a notification bar or similar

    Wrong. Companies which host out of the EU, or are otherwise subject to EU law, have to ask for permission. Everybody else on the planet doesn't give a fuck about your local laws.

  11. Re:Shocking by You're+All+Wrong · · Score: 5, Interesting

    False - they followed the standard. Then somebody on the standards committee (Fielding, presumably) *changed* the standard.

    Look at the date stamps on the released versions of the W3C standards - look at the minutes of the meetings of the committee. If you have more than half a brain you will notice that the change between the most recent version and the previous version of the standard - which *did not* have the default clause you seem to think has been there for ever - was not discussed in any meeting.

    The WC3 is being influenced by shills. I'd put money on there being some Yahoo! input on the W3C committee.

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