Apple Removes Useless 'Do Not Track' Feature From Latest Beta Versions of Safari (macrumors.com)

In the release notes for Safari 12.1, the new version of Apple's browser installed in iOS 12.2, Apple says that it is removing support for the "Do Not Track" feature, which is now outdated. From a news writeup: "Removed support for the expired Do Not Track standard to prevent potential use as a fingerprinting variable," the release note reads. The same feature was also removed from Safari Technology Preview today, Apple's experimental macOS browser, and it is not present in the macOS 10.14.4 betas. According to Apple, Do Not Track is "expired" and support is being eliminated to prevent its use as, ironically, a fingerprinting variable for tracking purposes. It is entirely up to the advertising companies to comply with the "Do Not Track" messaging, and it has no actual function beyond broadcasting a user preference.

Comments

Naive

[orev]

It was always a naive solution put forth by idealistic technologists. Did we really expect the ad companies who are already abusing data collection to the fullest extent possible to stop doing it (and go out of business) simply because you asked them nicely using an obscure setting in the browser?

Re:Naive

[Sneftel]

Only by default. If someone wanted to be tracked, they could easily turn the flag off. And if you had to guess, would you say a given user would want to be tracked or not?

Advertisers aren't automatically entitled to benefit from a user's apathy.

Re:Naive

[orev]

I see we have found one of the aforementioned idealists. It's extremely naive to think that any ad company whose entire business model is suck up as much data as possible is going to honor the user's preference to "please don't track me". It's like asking a hungry bear "please don't eat me". This approach was doomed to failure from the beginning without some very heavy handed regulation and penalties enforced by governments (like DMCA), which of course was never going to happen. As usual in a tech discussion, the focus here is on some completely irrelevant technical detail of some software setting, instead of the actually real causes of the issue, which are the market forces and business realities. Whatever Microsoft set the default to is completely irrelevant; their browser market share is tiny anyway.

Re:Naive

[Sneftel]

No idea what MS's intent was, but what makes the feature completely useless is that it relies on advertisers' cooperation. Are you seriously suggesting that if it had been an opt-out rather than an opt-in, advertisers would have obeyed it? That they would have foregone tracking those people who really really didn't want to be tracked?

Re:Naive

[Sneftel]

DNT could have become part of GDPR! That was the perfect opportunity for it to gain actual legal definition and legal force. But you'd better believe that GDPR is the result of regulatory capture. And as annoying as GDPR is for engaged, privacy-conscious consumers, it's the perfect camouflage for the advertisers.

Re:Naive

[AmiMoJo]

It was worth doing because now we can say to advertisers "we gave you the opportunity, you blew it, and now you are blocked." Ad blocking gained a lot of legitimacy when advertisers decided that they were going to ignore polite requests.

Re:Naive

[ChatHuant]

No it wasn't. It was a reasonable solution that was intentionally sabotaged by Microsoft.

Bullshit. It was absolutely not a reasonable solution, and it was not "sabotaged" by Microsoft. It was a publicity stunt by Google and Mozilla, and its goal was to block the pro-consumer design proposed to the W3C by Microsoft. Briefly, the MS proposal boiled down to something like uBlock/AdBlock built directly into the browser. Google couldn't abide this, so they forced the current DNT design through the W3C standardization committee instead.
Here are a few reasons why this is not a reasonable, pro-consumer design:
  - there is no way for a consumer to enforce their choice against a non-cooperating tracking site
  - there isn't even a way to confirm whether your DNT request was honored or not
  - there is no way to find out in advance whether a certain site will honor DNT at all
  - it's designed as opt-out by default, which is a cynical ploy to profit from the fact that the majority of consumers aren't very technically knowledgeable. Any privacy-related settings should be opt-in by design
By making the option default to on in IE, Microsoft exposed the uselessness of the "standard". The subsequent spat raised awareness about how much of a lie Google's DNT is. This is a good thing - lies need to be challenged.
I previously posted some more details on how the alleged standard came to be, with links. I refer you to that post.

Re:Naive

[dgatwood]

Microsoft did not poison the well. The companies that ignore the do not track flag are the ones that are at fault here.

Microsoft turning on that flag for everyone could not possibly have made any difference in the behavior of advertisers that were already ignore that flag. The only thing that turning the flag on by default did was give advertisers that *didn't* already ignore it a compelling reason to do so. They most certainly did poison the well.

Microsoft actually did what most people would want - NOT to be tracked.

Citation needed. If you ask random people, "Would you rather see random ads for things you don't care about or ads that direct you towards products you might actually be interested in," I guarantee you that 99% or more of people would choose the latter. This is what tracking makes possible. It doesn't just benefit advertisers. It also benefits users.

The real question is should tech companies track people the way they do. If you ask the average person they would almost certainly say "No I do not want to be tracked"

If you asked the average person, "Do you want us to give you a shot," they will also say no. If you asked the average person, "Do you want to be vaccinated against a deadly pandemic plague that is sweeping across Europe right now and will almost certainly hit our shores in a matter of days," they will all say yes. Asking people a question without giving them the information needed to make an informed decision is a useless thing to do, because the results are meaningless.

The right question to ask is not whether users should be tracked, but rather whether users should have the right to see, inspect, correct, and, if desired, delete data that has been collected or inferred about them. If users have that right, then very, very few people will want to not be tracked, because the benefit of tracking will greatly exceed the negligible loss of privacy.

Re:Naive

[Darinbob]

Being tracked should always be opt-in!

Re:Naive

[drinkypoo]

Not everybody is already aware of the existence of all products and services that might interest them.

That kind of information belongs in trade publications and the like, the ultimate targeted advertising. It never made any sense to pop up ads to people on unrelated content. It only alienates potential customers. You want your content to be where they will find it if they go looking for it, not to pop up when they're looking for something else.

Removing it is the wrong solution

[QuietLagoon]

The proper solution to the problem is for the ad companies to abide by it, either voluntarily or by law. By removing it, Apple is telling the ad companies that Apple no longer cares about its users' privacy, and is inviting the ad companies to abuse Apple Safari users even more.

Re:Removing it is the wrong solution

[jeffasselin]

They are stating that this setting can actually be used to track you even more; it’s worse than useless, it is in fact detrimental to privacy. They also said they would step up built-in measures that should make tracking harder, which is definitely better than a useless flag.

Re:Headline

[stealth_finger]

It's a link to that article, why would it not use the same headline? You'll shit your pants when you find the summaries here are lifted directly from the articles too.

Definitely Naive

[sjbe]

No it wasn't. It was a reasonable solution that was intentionally sabotaged by Microsoft.

I'm certainly no fan of Microsoft but come on... It was an absurd and naive idea that never had a prayer of working. WAY too much money at stake and too little oversight for it to ever have had a prayer of working. It could not possibly have worked without being supported by pretty strict laws in the US and EU.

"Do Not Track" was supposed to represent an affirmative request by the user to not be tracked.

Are you seriously arguing that it was supposed to be opt-in and that somehow that would have been a good thing? So people who aren't aware of the option should be screwed by default?

They turned the flag on for everyone, so that it meant nothing. They intentionally poisoned the concept.

It SHOULD be on by default. But even if it wasn't, it still would be roundly ignored by pretty much every company interested in tracking you. As requests go it was pretty much the equivalent of asking a shark to not eat you while you are bleeding in the water. It was a request and it was entirely predictable it was going to be ignored right from the start.

All useless features should be removed

[sjbe]

The proper solution to the problem is for the ad companies to abide by it, either voluntarily or by law.

Ad companies will NEVER voluntarily respect the Do Not Track flag. WAY too much money at stake for that to happen. Seriously, you cannot be so naive as to think it was anything more than a feel good waste of time.

By removing it, Apple is telling the ad companies that Apple no longer cares about its users' privacy, and is inviting the ad companies to abuse Apple Safari users even more.

So you think removing an absurd feature that NEVER worked and never could have worked is somehow a bad idea? The only way DNT could possibly have worked is if it were backed up by laws with teeth which were never going to happen. Since it was a voluntary request those wishing to ignore it (for profit or malice) were free to do so legally.

This isn't Apple caring or not caring about privacy. It's Apple bowing to reality and not wasting resources on a useless feature that never had a prayer of doing what it's proponents hoped would happen. It was a dumb idea from the start and Apple is simply admitting this publicly.