21–30 of 38 posts
"If “Do Not Track” defaults to on, most users will have it on; if it defaults to off, most users will have it off. Defaulting to off is no more a representation of “the user’s voice” than defaulting to on is."
Mozilla's reaction: http://blog.mozilla.org/privacy/2012/05/31/do-not-track-its-... "There are three different signals to consider in broadcasting the user’s preferences for tracking: User says they accept tracking User says they reject tracking User hasn’t chosen anything Firefox defaults to state 3: we don’t know what the user wants, so we’re not sending any signals to servers. This causes the presence of the signa…
>we don’t know what the user wants How about they ask their users on first install?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had the exact opposite feeling. First, everybody cares about privacy. Just because businesses have taken advantage of users being clueless, doesn't mean those clueless people don't care about privacy. Second, your "nobody knows about it" argument can cut the other way. How can a business track people when most people don't know/care that they can opt out of being tracked? Nobody wants to mention it, but the truth i…
I spent several years working for a marketing firm and based on my experience with the industry I would guess that there will be no adoption of honoring these tags if they are sent by default unless it becomes legally mandated.
It seems silly for marketing firms to tell everybody, "Oh yeah, we're totally serious about privacy and we'll honor DNT," and then backtrack when lots of browsers start sending it.
It's not Microsoft looking bad here.
Seems like a terrible idea. I think the vast majority of online marketing companies are very willing to let people opt-out of tracking [1], but people who haven't expressed a preference? If DNT header becomes the default for browsers then I predict ignoring DNT will become the default for ad networks. [1] http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp
In that case I hope someone makes an extension that blocks ads from such networks by default.
I don't know if that would really hurt Google or Facebook because if you have a google account, you are opted-in to have google or facebook track you.
It might hurt 'lurker' ad networks which track you without you even having any account or relationship with them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had the exact opposite feeling. First, everybody cares about privacy. Just because businesses have taken advantage of users being clueless, doesn't mean those clueless people don't care about privacy. Second, your "nobody knows about it" argument can cut the other way. How can a business track people when most people don't know/care that they can opt out of being tracked? Nobody wants to mention it, but the truth i…
If you say everybody cares about privacy you should back that up (unless you are using privacy in the general term and not for this specific example). I, for one, do not care about site tracking; in fact, I would gladly opt in to any such service if I see it fit. And I know a lot of people who also do not care about tracking.
If IE10 installer asked you this question: Do you want websites to track you? () Yes () No I think most people would say No. So, defaulting to No seems like the correct thing to do. I don't know if that would really hurt Google or Facebook because if you have a google account, you are opted-in to have google or facebook track you. It might hurt 'lurker' ad networks which track you without you even having any account…
1) There will always be ads on the internet. We are not moving to a direct pay internet economy anytime soon. 2) Behavior targeting is significantly more effective than other types of targeting including the context based approach heavily favored by privacy advocates. (See http://idaconcpts.com/2011/04/13/behavioral-targeting-double...). Because of this, the advertising companies will find ways to keep doing behavior targetting - ranging from the benign like site retargetting to the more troubling association with private data.
DNT as an opt out solution is great because it allows people who probably won't click on ads to say they don't want them. Private users and advertising companies both win. But third party cookies exist for a reason and if they are removed from the equation then advertising companies will simply find another way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I spent several years working for a marketing firm and based on my experience with the industry I would guess that there will be no adoption of honoring these tags if they are sent by default unless it becomes legally mandated.
Well there's really nothing Microsoft can do about that, is there? It seems silly for marketing firms to tell everybody, "Oh yeah, we're totally serious about privacy and we'll honor DNT," and then backtrack when lots of browsers start sending it. It's not Microsoft looking bad here.
The end result will be that Microsofts choice will result in everyone being tracked rather than only those people that have no preference set or have explicitly opted in.
A good example of companies not honoring a restrictive default is the P3P header. Damn near everyone sends a P3P header but most of them don't actually honor the settings from the header, or have the other components set up. It's all about getting third party cookies set successfully and not honoring how MS implemented P3P in IE or what the user wants.