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W3C Rejects Ad Industry's Do-Not-Track Proposal

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-come-'round-here-with-that-nonsense dept.

itwbennett writes "The W3C's Tracking Protection Working Group, which is mainly concerned with standardizing the mechanisms for server-side compliance with do-not-track requests, has rejected a proposal by from the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) that would have allowed advertisers to continue profiling users who had asked not to be tracked. The proposal would also have allowed them to 'retarget' ads to those users by showing ads relevant to one site or transaction on all subsequent sites they visited, according to the co-chairs of the W3C's Tracking Protection Working Group. The working group co-chairs also said that they planned to reject proposals similar to those made by the DAA."

13 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Do Not Track... by Synerg1y · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The most useless checkbox in the history of browsers.

    1. Re:Do Not Track... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Request Policy complements noscript quite nicely, as it allows you to restrict access to third party domains. E.g., by default, requests from example.net to adserv.example.com are rejected.

    2. Re:Do Not Track... by UltraZelda64 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yet, Mozilla seems hell-bent on supporting this destined-to-be-ignored flag, while they remove everything--even Javascript settings--from the GUI. Pure irony.

      I do have the Do Not Track setting turned on, but only as a final "fuck off." My real lines of defense are disabled third-party cookies, NoScript, DoNotTrackMe and AdBlock Plus. Anyone who really trusts in that header is a nut.

    3. Re:Do Not Track... by sjames · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem there is that the advertisers forgot the old adage "you don't shit where you eat".

      If they had simply shown a few ads and made sure their servers were up to the task, few if any would have even bothered with ad-blockers. But no, They had to plaster the page with jumping singing dancing ads that pop up and pop under and triple (or worse) the page load time. Then to top it off, they didn't even bother to make sure the ads weren't drive-by viruses or illegal scams.

      Since all of that wasn't enough, they decided to also become internet stalkers.

      It's only natural that people came to consider most any ad they see on the web to be a probable scam and to run ad blockers to avoid the assault on their senses and more that a few infections as well.

      Then finally, when given a chance to restore some tiny shred of good will, they decided to ignore DNT.

    4. Re: Do Not Track... by markjhood2003 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Firegloves: http://fingerprint.pet-portal.eu/?menu=6

      A Firefox plugin to impede fingerprinting-based tracking while maintaining browsing experience. You may download and install the demo version of the extension by clicking the link below. This is not the final version; it is recommended to check this page regularly for updates. We welcome your remarks and suggestions - you may contact us using the Contact page.

      I've used it and it works pretty well for a demo.

  2. Advertising is butts by Reverand+Dave · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Marketing departments are a bunch of assholes.

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    I got here through a series of tubes
  3. Re:Is it true Apache webservers block DNT? by TWiTfan · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is an article on it from Ars Technica, for anyone who thinks I'm making this shit up.

    --
    The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
  4. Not useless, but its usefulness is now over by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    DNT had exactly one use: to determine whether or not advertisers respect the wishes of people who do not want their browsing habits tracked. The verdict is in, and to nobody's surprise advertisers have no respect for anyone. Now we know that we are justified in using ad-blocking plugins and building browsers that block ads by default.

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    Palm trees and 8
    1. Re:Not useless, but its usefulness is now over by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Informative

      DNT had exactly one use: to determine whether or not advertisers respect the wishes of people who do not want their browsing habits tracked. The verdict is in, and to nobody's surprise advertisers have no respect for anyone. Now we know that we are justified in using ad-blocking plugins and building browsers that block ads by default.

      Careful, advertisers like Google have paid Adblock Plus to whitelist their ads. Sure it's google ads today, but Google owns the vast majority of online ad networks and commands practically all the online ad markets, and if they're paying off the ad blockers to whitelist...

      And of course, Google is naturally tracking you. Especially whitelisted.

      I encourage people to always adblock on techreport, because they threaten to nuke user accounts that talk about using adblocking. That's not the right approach.

      It depends. Sites depend on ads to pay for content and hosting, and many with "premium" options do not allow talk of ad blockers as well. Even reputable ones - like Ars Technica. Even the merest hint of ad blocking without whitelisting the site in question is out. I got banned for mentioning noscript and didn't even mention blocking the site's ads, just it happened to block a good chunk of ads.

      Of course, one side effect of this is sites get desperate for money and they end up getting sold and re-sold to other companies. It's only a matter of time before pretty much online ads disappear as we know them because websites are all purchased up and owned by a few media conglomerates who bought them for the user information and all that.

      Of course, the little guy with a blog who wants to make a couple of bucks won't be able to attract any advertisers because they all went to the big guys with their massive data pools from buying up websites left and right.

    2. Re:Not useless, but its usefulness is now over by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are acting like tracking and advertising are inseparable. They are not, you can advertise without tracking people and you can make money doing so. I do not want to be tracked, and the only technical solution at this point is to block advertisements -- because even loading a static image from an advertiser will be used as a data point to track me.

      If a website wants me to view its ads, it should refuse the business of advertisers that create privacy-invading ads. If websites were standing up for their users they would not be at risk of becoming collateral damage in this fight.

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      Palm trees and 8
    3. Re:Not useless, but its usefulness is now over by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Informative

      Careful, advertisers like Google have paid Adblock Plus to whitelist their ads

      Sure, but ABP has an easy-to-find checkbox to enable/disable whitelisted ads. There are also many other ad blockers out there that can be used if ABP ever stops working effectively (and being easy to configure).

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      Palm trees and 8
    4. Re:Not useless, but its usefulness is now over by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That is exactly the point.

      If advertisers DID heed the DNT request and not track those who see their ads, fewer people would even bother to reach for ad blockers. But the greed was stronger. Why only benefit from people seeing your ads when you can as well sell their profile while you're at it?

      And now the greedy call those defending against their greed greedy. That's really rich.

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      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. Re:Lack of Trust by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    SPAM is unsolicited email sent on your dollar, consuming your resources.

    When my CPU is spinning because of your Javascript-super-fancy-tracks-all-the-things advertisement, you are consuming my resources. When I have to download a megabyte of Javascript/Flash/whatever to see your ads, you are consuming my resources. When I have to spend time trying to navigate around annoying hover ads, you are consuming my resources.

    At least when I receive spam, I know the spammer has no idea who I am or whether or not I opened their message. Website advertisers try hard to track everything, even when you are very clearly trying to stop them; that is what DNT has demonstrated.

    Ads are implicitly requested when you visit an ad-supported site

    No, the page is what is requested. My browser is not obligated to do anything at all with the webpage your server sends it. There is no implicit request; you explicitly asked my browser to request ads from the advertisers you choose to do business with.

    People making a big deal about this should perhaps rethink why they are entitled to someone else's work (the website) without respecting their terms (the ads).

    You put your work on the open web. You did not put it behind a paywall. You did not force me to view your ads before seeing your page.

    Nobody wrote an ad blocker because they were angry about textual ads or banner ads. Ad blockers exists because the advertisers have no respect for anyone's desire to not be tracked, to not have hover ads, pop-ups, pop-unders, Flash, Java, and other adware annoyances. Advertisers have shot themselves in the foot with their own greed, and if your website is not saying, "No, I do not want you to piss off my users with these antics" then your website is part of the problem.

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    Palm trees and 8