Items tagged with DNT
Microsoft is giving Internet Explorer and Project Spartan browser users a heads up that in future releases, the Do Not Track feature will no longer be enabled by default. On the surface (no pun intended), Microsoft's reasoning for the change is that enabling the privacy feature by default only encourages websites to ignore the setting and use tracking cookies anyway.It's not such an odd leap of logic, and it's one that the World Wide Web Consortium (WC3) agrees with. As WC3 explains, sending a signal to disable tracking "MUST reflect the user's preference, not the choice of some vendor, institution, site, or network-imposed mechanism outside the user's control." So when no user choice exists...
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Yahoo is proud as a peacock to point out that it was an early adopter of Do Not Track, but at the same time, the company isn't willing to let that little tidbit prevent it from suddenly abandoning the privacy initiative by ignoring DNT requests. In case you're wondering why Yahoo changed its mind, the company's excuse boils down to, 'Meh, why bother?' We're paraphrasing, of course. "As of today, web browser Do Not Track settings will no longer be enabled on Yahoo. As the first major tech company to implement Do Not Track, we've been at the heart of conversations surrounding how to develop the most user-friendly standard. However, we have yet to see a single standard emerge that is effective,...
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Last month, Microsoft dropped a bombshell on advertisers -- its Internet Explorer 10 that ships with Windows 8 would ship with its "Do Not Track" setting enabled. Users would have to opt out of DNT by manually changing this setting if they wanted websites to track them. The DNT standard is still being debated, and compliance with it is voluntary, but even so, Microsoft's announcement made a lot of advertisers unhappy. This was reflected in changes the W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium) announced a few weeks later, when it stated that in order to be considered "in compliance" with DNT, all browsers must not set a DNT preference without the user's explicit consent. This perversely means Microsoft...
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