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Do_not_track

donottrack.sh

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Re: Do_not_track

#161

Post by LocalH »

Gigachad wrote: post #75
LocalH wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertisers chose to ignore DNT because they claimed Microsoft making DNT enabled by default took agency away from the user. In reality, they probably weren't going to honor it anyway.

There's an inherent conflict. No one _wants_ to be tracked, there is no direct benefit to being tracked and only downsides. And advertisers want to track you. So there was no way to respect the flag other than making it obscure so only a few dedicated people turned it on.

In other words, advertisers wrangled out of something that could help people because they claimed it wasn't the true intent of people?

Advertisers are the scum of the Earth, as someone with ADHD who doesn't ever consent to my attention being stolen in that way. I really don't care what their opinion is, since they're intruding into my headspace without permission

Re: Do_not_track

#162

Post by LocalH »

jampekka wrote: post #121
xigoi wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one _wants_ to be tracked Plenty of people seem to genuinely believe that “personalized ads” are good for them.

No-one is too absolute, but could ne used as a rough rule of thumb. Depending on the study, 0.16% to 7% want to get tracked. https://noyb.eu/sites/default/files/2025-07/Pay_or_Okay_Repo...

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

Re: Do_not_track

#163

Post by LocalH »

mmooss wrote: post #45
LocalH wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertisers chose to ignore DNT because they claimed Microsoft making DNT enabled by default took agency away from the user. In reality, they probably weren't going to honor it anyway.

Microsoft is too sophisticated to plead ignorance; they are responsible for that outcome and I think we can assume they knowningly chose it. (Though now Microsoft browsers are such a small portion of the market that it doesn't matter.) The biggest failure of DNT was browser makers - including Mozilla - removing it. It has zero performance impact (1 bit?) or development cost. As long as it was out there, when there wa…

No, the advertisers were responsible for that outcome, by using that as a flimsy excuse to ignore the setting

Browsers only removed it once it was clear that the advertising industry was going to refuse to honor it

Re: Do_not_track

#164

Post by LocalH »

dylan604 wrote: post #91
mmooss wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I've never seen that. It would be great if it became more widespread. But isn't DNT deprecated in most browsers? Maybe I misremember.

::shrug:: I set it a long time ago and never looked back. I never looked into it being deprecated, but I knew that pretty much everyone ignored it for reasons . But by these banners, I'm guessing it still lives on as a setting.

Advertisers ignored it because MS decided to turn it into opt-in instead of opt-out, and advertisers very much hate opt-in. They'd much rather require the most permissive defaults, and put every barrier they can in front of opting out.

Re: Do_not_track

#165

Post by latexr »

sneak wrote: post #126
latexr wrote: post #72

Same thing has been suggested a few years ago and it went nowhere. https://web.archive.org/web/20200613155957/https://consoledo...

It didn’t go nowhere; a few projects implemented it. The philosophical basis was wrong, though. Opt out should not be encouraged via an off switch. It should be eradicated, and the people who accepted money to write such malware should be plainly named so that such actions can be part of their professional reputation.

> It didn’t go nowhere; a few projects implemented it.

If you try to create a standard and almost no one implements it, it’s not a standard and it went nowhere. Its stated goal wasn’t achieved, and the fact its domain and webpage have been abandoned makes that abundantly clear.

Re: Do_not_track

#166

Post by croes »

marshray wrote: post #157
croes wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you hadn’t the option to go in it is not opt-in. If so put you in by default but you have the option to go out it’s opt-put So this is either opt-out or not a option at all

The law of the excluded middle does not create semantic problems for the phrase "being opted-in by default". Human language does not work like that.

There is no excluded middle.

You have to turn it on = Opt-In

You have to turn it off = Opt-Out

Just because the option was added later on doesn’t change that.

Or tell me what’s the difference for me between Opted-In by default and Opt-Out

Re: Do_not_track

#167

Post by mmooss »

LocalH wrote: post #164
dylan604 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

::shrug:: I set it a long time ago and never looked back. I never looked into it being deprecated, but I knew that pretty much everyone ignored it for reasons . But by these banners, I'm guessing it still lives on as a setting.

Advertisers ignored it because MS decided to turn it into opt-in instead of opt-out, and advertisers very much hate opt-in. They'd much rather require the most permissive defaults, and put every barrier they can in front of opting out.

Users usually don't know about or change settings, so opt-out often means little. What portion of users knows about DNT? 1% 0.1%

Microsoft knows that; they rendered DNT meaningless:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47990485

Re: Do_not_track

#168

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #159
andybak wrote: post #136

My projects could genuinely benefit from telemetry as I have no idea about usage patterns and my community (mainly artists) is not famous for maintaining a close dialogue with software developers. I haven't bothered because a) opt-out risks a backlash and b) opt-in affects the data so much it becomes useless (much smaller sample and probably self-selecting a certain type of user) Skimming the comments here, it seems…

Opt-in data is "useless" That's one I have not heard before Useless for what Targeting a certain "type of user" perhaps "I get the distrust of large corporations and other obvious bad actors - but the blanket cycnicism for all telemetry here is kind surprising" There is effectively no way for a user to determine whether an actor is "bad" or "good" and that definition may vary depending on the user The user cannot ver…

Begs the question: Why isn't opt-out "useless"

Perhaps because only way to get large sample size is to target users who are unaware of "defaults", i.e., remove choice

Perhaps when forced to make a choice ("opt-in"), users will not choose to share data (unless the developer uses dark patterns to manipulate the choice)

Why is that

Re: Do_not_track

#170

Post by andybak »

deanishe wrote: post #152
andybak wrote: post #136

My projects could genuinely benefit from telemetry as I have no idea about usage patterns and my community (mainly artists) is not famous for maintaining a close dialogue with software developers. I haven't bothered because a) opt-out risks a backlash and b) opt-in affects the data so much it becomes useless (much smaller sample and probably self-selecting a certain type of user) Skimming the comments here, it seems…

> I get the distrust of large corporations and other obvious bad actors […] > the blanket cynicism for all telemetry here is kinda surprising Who's providing the telemetry/analytics if not one of same large corporations? Many devs say they care about user privacy, but very few seem to care enough not to farm surveillance out to a 3rd-party they have no control over.

> Who's providing the telemetry/analytics if not one of same large corporations?

Erm. It would be me? The idea was that the app (not a web app btw) would send back data about which features were being used (to a server I control) so I could build up a picture of how often various features were being used relative to other features. Nothing remotely personally identifiable.

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