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Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

windowsreport.com

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Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#201

Post by mmooss »

gkoberger wrote: post #67

I was at Mozilla when this was implemented. It was completely optional for websites to support this. A few did at first. A lot of people internally wanted it to be on-by-default, but the argument was that if it was, nobody would respect it – after all, what tracking platform would willingly only track the 0.1% of people who went into the settings to enable it? (Internet Explorer did eventually enable it by default, w…

I thought DNT was a creative solution:

The only way to stop tracking is via laws or regulations. Technical solutions are, arguably, a never-ending arms race - probably a losing one for end users.

DNT was a way to demonstrate consumer interest in not being tracked, and it put businesses in the position of ignoring explicit requests from consumers for privacy.

Unfortunately, nobody effectively capitalized on that.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#202

Post by bluGill »

registeredcorn wrote: post #158
bluGill wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you have a plan to make it useful it needs to go. Right now it is false advertising. If you can find someone and successfuly sue them for not honoring it great - but you still need to do a lot more (sue many others in many countries).

What need is that? Bad people with malicious intentions exist: therefore, remove something that functions properly. DNT is not shilled by some privately-owned company that claims it will somehow, "Make users invisible online for the low, low price of (money)!" Instead, it is simply an HTTP header that some (many) websites ignore, or outright maliciously exploit for personal gain. Computer Operating systems are not "f…

I didn't say a law needs to be created. however if there is no enforcement of this header it is useless. Law is the only way I can come up with to enforce this (courts just implies there is some existing law - would this header field be considered a contract for example?), but if you can come up with something else I'm open to that. However so far is has not been enforced to do what it claims to do and nobody is making progress on changing that.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#203

Post by gkoberger »

photonthug wrote: post #174
gkoberger wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I somewhat agree... but browsers aren't a profitable business. In 30 years of browsers being mainstream, nobody has built one that's sustainable –– only works if it's subsidized by a larger company. There's been a few attempts (Brave wants to monetize via crypto, Arc is pivoting away), but it's really hard. People don't want to pray for a browser – 99% of people are apathetic, and the 1% that cares aren't known for p…

After 30 years, isn’t it weird that the conversation is still about whether building a browser is profitable or if users are willing to pay for one? One would think that the technology would be so mature and ubiquitous that this is not a major issue 30 years later. If the core technology is still changing so fast that browsers need to be in constant development for the entire duration of their useful lifespan, maybe…

Well, it kinda is. Anyone can create a browser over the weekend by using Chromium or Gecko. Brave and Arc and DDG did.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#204

Post by boolemancer »

darkhorse222 wrote: post #107
coldpie wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally I would like to see ads improved Sure, sounds good. When you win that fight, let me know and I'll reconsider the ad blocker.

I doubt it. In my experience those that block ads feel entitled to the content without payment of any kind. They see ads as an intrusion rather than a fair exchange. No, I don't see you turning it back on regardless of how things go. The average user doesn't even recognize that running a website literally cost electricity that must be paid for. Who pays for it? Who will carry the boats?

> The average user doesn't even recognize that running a website literally cost electricity that must be paid for. Who pays for it? Who will carry the boats?

Running a retail store also has costs associated with it, including, yes, electricity.

Yet if I walk into a store and leave without buying anything, do I feel like I owe the store owner anything?

No. That's not how that works, nor is that how it should work.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#205

Post by dpifke »

If I understand correctly, DNT is being deprecated in favor of a new proposal, "Global Privacy Control": https://w3c.github.io/gpc/

So instead of sending the header:

DNT: 1

Firefox will now optionally (via a different setting than was used for DNT) send:

Sec-GPC: 1

I'm unclear on why anyone thinks this is a useful change. As a website owner who previously implemented anonymization code activated in the presence of a DNT header, I guess I can add code to also look for Sec-GPC, but this feels like churn for the sake of churn.

It also feels ridiculous that Mozilla can't just send both headers if the same browser preference is checked, rather than requiring websites to look for both. I get that they want stronger promises around "Sec-GPC" than around "DNT", but the latter is a subset of the former, so why not update the client-side checkbox description, and then send both?

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#206

Post by notatoad »

gkoberger wrote: post #67

I was at Mozilla when this was implemented. It was completely optional for websites to support this. A few did at first. A lot of people internally wanted it to be on-by-default, but the argument was that if it was, nobody would respect it – after all, what tracking platform would willingly only track the 0.1% of people who went into the settings to enable it? (Internet Explorer did eventually enable it by default, w…

>I would love if the cookie modals on each site became browser-level,

if the EU regulators who wrote the cookie law had any competence, this is how it would have been implemented. browsers should have a cookie prompt in the UI, not websites.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#207

Post by mywittyname »

autoexec wrote: post #110
kube-system wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even better if you have JS disabled by default and sites can't collect 90% of the data points your browser exposes at all. There's two gigantic issues with that: 1. Most websites won't work 2. Most people like websites to work, and so they have JS turned on. If you don't, you'll stick out like a sore thumb.

You'd be surprised at how many websites work just fine with JS disabled, at least in terms of providing the content you want. Menus/navigation might not work, and I wouldn't even attempt online shopping without JS, but enough websites still manage to display basic text and images without JS that it's a surprising annoyance when they fail to. Sticking out like a sore thumb isn't a problem as long as you look like a di…

I get by using no-script universally and it's rare that I need to allow JS for more than 2-3 domains to get a site fully functional. Usually it's limited to site, and site-cdn.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#208

Post by meiraleal »

cymon wrote: post #122

Probably a stupid question, but why is it not possible for a browser to ignore cookies from a site where the user chose 'Do Not Track' then that's it, they can't have cookies, can't log in e.t.c alternatively a few white labeled cookies can be agreed upon as a standard e.g just to support maintaining logged in sessions

Google won't let Mozilla ever do that

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#209

Post by mywittyname »

pessimizer wrote: post #191
autoexec wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although, anti-tracking in general is basically fighting a losing battle. Go to https://amiunique.org/ and you'll see why. The goal shouldn't be to appear non-unique. There are too many little things that will out you. Even if you somehow account for every single one of them today your next browser update could enable more and you can't trust that amiunique.org is looking at every identifying data point either. It'…

[flagged]

This happens on my phone (Safari) way more than my laptop browser running NoScript.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#210

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

behringer wrote: post #183
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial sites brought ad blocks upon themselves with malvertising an insanely obtrusive ads. It blows my mind how people are so accepting of the status quo, especially on mobile, where many news sites will put a sticky ad banner on the top, throw a video ad on the corner (with a close button that's only 1/8" across, of course), and then every paragraph (which is only like 2-3 sentences) is separated by an ad. At a…

Get yourself firefox mobile and have ublock origin on your phone :)

I already do, but that only blocks ads in Firefox. If I open a link in an app, it often uses some browser widget that's effectively Chrome.
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