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Stanford, Mozilla, Opera Launch Web Privacy Initiative
An anonymous reader writes "Stanford Law School has kicked off a 'Cookie Clearinghouse' web privacy initiative that brings together researchers and browsers. The project aims to provide a centralized and trusted repository for whitelist and blacklist data on web tracking, much like StopBadware does for malware. Mozilla and Opera are collaborating on the initiative, and Mozilla plans to integrate it into Firefox's new default third-party cookie blocking. The leader of an advertising trade group has, of course, denounced the participating browsers as 'oligopolies.'"
“There are billions and billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs at stake in this supply chain,” said Rothenberg, who called the browser makers “oligopolies” with excessive power to make decisions affecting the workings of the Internet. “It should be done with stakeholders’ input.”
Mr. Rothenberg, you keep using that word. I do not think that it means what you think it means. The "stakeholders" in this are the users of the browsers, not the web site operators. Get that part right, at least. It is my browser, not the web site operators. If I don't want it to allow me to be tracked through the use of third-party cookies, I should have that choice, just like it's the web site operator's choice to deny me access if I don't allow such tracking. It's all about choice and when it comes to what my browser should or should not do, that choice is mine.