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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.
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?
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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.
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.
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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.