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

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

Posted by timothy on Friday October 26, 2012 @05:57PM from the tsa-logic dept.

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.

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Shocking by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-26 18:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

See now, the trouble here is that all of these privacy settings rely on corporate "good will", when there is no such thing.
Really, the only way to ensure your privacy is extreme paranoia. Sorry.
1. Re:Shocking by Grishnakh · 2012-10-26 18:03 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  What's even more shocking is that there's people still using Yahoo.
2. Re:Shocking by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-26 18:11 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  No, not at all. The real shock is anyone thinking that Microsoft isn't the one to blame here.
  They didn't follow the standard, again, and so they knew the switch in IE would be ignored.
3. Re:Shocking by captain_sweatpants · 2012-10-26 18:49 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You seem to have neglected to read this bit, so I'll repeat it for you
  
  They didn't follow the standard, again
  Anyway it's a pointless standard so the argument is moot. A voluntary standard that gets in the way of profits is a standard that will never be followed.
4. Re:Shocking by TheGratefulNet · 2012-10-26 18:51 · 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!
  
  --
  
  --
  "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
5. Re:Shocking by rtfa-troll · 2012-10-26 19:40 · 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.
  
  --
  =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
6. Re:Shocking by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-26 19:54 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  That is a VERY recent change to the standard which was put in AFTER MS gave users an option which was well within the standard. Advertisers realised they would be fucked so they changed the standard.
7. Re:Shocking by TrueSpeed · 2012-10-26 20:02 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Verizon must operate in a non civilised world then. Verizon proactively collects and sells your information unless you log into their portal and turn off the service - providing you can find it. And Verizon isn't the only one - they all do it. Why would any company turn down such as easy way to make money that requires virtually no effort on their part.
8. Re:Shocking by rtfa-troll · 2012-10-26 20:10 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Verizon must operate in a non civilised world then.
  Correct.
  
  --
  =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
9. Re:Shocking by sjames · 2012-10-26 21:04 · 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.
10. Re:Shocking by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-26 22:54 · 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.
11. Re:Shocking by You're+All+Wrong · 2012-10-26 23:59 · 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.
  
  --
  Your head of state is a corrupt weasel, I hope you're happy.
12. Re:Shocking by You're+All+Wrong · 2012-10-27 00:02 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  > The WC3 is being influenced by shills. I'd put money on there being some Yahoo! input on the W3C committee.
  
  Oh Jesus, it's worse than I thought. Head over to
  http://www.w3.org/2012/dnt-ws/
  
  Right on the front page - a hiuge great banner:
  """
  Workshop Sponsor
  
  sponsored by Yahoo!
  
  Contact W3C if you are interested in Sponsorship
  """
  
  Corrupt as fuck.
  
  --
  Your head of state is a corrupt weasel, I hope you're happy.
Why not? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-26 18:02 · Score: 5, Informative

Even Apache doesn't honor DNT if it has been issued by IE10
http://www.pcworld.com/article/262150/apache_web_servers_will_ignore_ie10s_do_not_track_settings.html
1. Re:Why not? by Xest · 2012-10-26 19:48 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  If giving users privacy by default is ignoring the spec then the spec is already meaningless.
  As such I and no doubt many others will continue to use ad-blockers and roll out ad-blockers to friends, family, and the businesses we work for to ensure that if they're going to track us regardless of our DNT setting, then they wont get any ad-revenue at all.
  So here's the thing, if I go into IE's options and disable DNT, and then re-enable it giving express consent according to the DNT spec then tell me, why is my DNT option still going to be ignored by Apache, Yahoo etc. hmm? Who is breaking the spec to make money and suit themselves then?
Obviously by Skyshadow · 2012-10-26 18:02 · 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.

--
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Yahoo Leads the Way by ohnocitizen · 2012-10-26 18:03 · Score: 4, Funny

Yahoo leads the way forward, whether it is in their innovative email platform with intuitive ui (ads), their reporting (entertainming/advertising) with an insightful comments from the community (tea partying racists), or their home page that I haven't visited but I hear has relevant content (ads) - Yahoo is the future. We can't expect anything less than a rejection of IE's fascist desire to make advertising less lucrative. After all, users want nothing more than for the advertising they see to be as intrusive and lucrative for companies as possible.
Re:Huge percentage are IE users by Billly+Gates · 2012-10-26 18:31 · Score: 4, Informative

What's even more shocking is that there's people still using Yahoo.
When working on any neophytes or old persons computer Yahoo is there under IE with the default homepage 80% of the time. Reason being is the crapware that OEMs install as well as ISP software both reset the users homepage too it for $$$ cash back.
Ones with MSN as the default page are typically corporate users. If MS decided not to be retarded and capture the market from Google they would put it in the Windows contract to not change the homepage at the OEM level. ... anyway I can see why Yahoo would be threatened by this as smart users like us who go to sites like slashdot use an alternative browser. Or if we do use IE we change the homepage to Google or something similar. Yahoo is the oldschool portal that regular people use who are not into computers very reminiscent of AOL back in the day 10 years earlier.

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http://saveie6.com/
Why rely on this for your privacy? by Virtucon · 2012-10-26 18:55 · Score: 4, Informative

DNT+, Ghostery these are all out there. Frankly there's probably very few websites now that don't track your IP address and other details with multiple
trackers.
Hell go to cnn.com and Ghostery blocks 10 trackers alone. Two of those are )(*@!@)*# Facebook trackers. Frankly, the amount of information people are collecting about our web browsing activities is becoming staggering and I for one won't rely on a company saying they'll honor "Do not Track" options from the browsers.
As Navin Johnson said "It's out there, see a doctor get rid of it" - The Jerk

--
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
*I* Rather be tracked by default by Quick+Reply · 2012-10-26 19:17 · 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 · 2012-10-26 19:34 · 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...
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
2. Re:*I* Rather be tracked by default by Xest · 2012-10-26 19:57 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yes, because before ads and subscription only became the norm there was nothing on the internet whatsoever, no content at all, nope, none whatsoever. Even sites like Wikipedia don't actually exist and we all just imagined them because they don't have ads or tracking so they can't possibly be real.
  For what it's worth the quality of content has gone down with the increase in ad-revenue run sites. You only have to look at Slashdot for example - nowadays due to being so reliant on gathering ad-revenue they regularly post stories that are out and out flamebait and not correct, informative, or interesting whatsoever purely to gain ad-revenue. Ad run websites have merely created a race to the bottom- to provide as much untrue inciteful bollocks as possible to make people come and see what the fuss is all about to increase ad revenue.
Re:Yahoo has this 100% correct by betterunixthanunix · 2012-10-27 01:03 · Score: 4, Informative

The W3C DNT spec explicitly says that a browser should not set this by default, yet Microsoft is completely ignoring the spec and turning it on by default.
No, when you first run IE10, it asks if you would like to turn DNT on as a recommended setting. The user has the choice. Before you say, "Nobody reads that anyway!" keep in mind that the justification for privacy invasion by sites like Yahoo is that they "clear" state it in the fine print (which, in fact, fewer people read).

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Palm trees and 8