do not track

Peter Swire, an Ohio State law professor and privacy expert who has worked with the Obama administration, is stepping into a contentious process to create a standard way to let people stop Web sites from tracking their online behavior.

Aleecia M. McDonald announced today she's stepping down as co-chair of the Do Not Track standardization effort at the World Wide Web Consortium. She previously worked for Firefox maker Mozilla, which launched the current DNT technology after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission sought a mechanism to block online tracking, but she currently works for a program within Stanford University'… Read more

Privacy online sounds a lot like an oxymoron these days, but it's still worth trying to protect it the best you can, right? So what kind of tracking is "Do Not Track" trying to protect against, and what will this option do to help stop it?

Tracking is basically the way that Webmasters and advertisers learn about your Web browsing habits. This is where "related ads" come from, despite them not being entirely accurate the majority of the time. Turning on this feature for Firefox will send a request to avoid tracking … Read more

Many Web sites collect data about you on each visit. This data is used for serving ads that meet your interests, or finding out which demographic is frequenting a specific type of content. In an effort to help you protect your online privacy, Google has added a new feature to Chrome: Do Not Track.

It's important to remember that this option is not going to protect you from Web sites that ignore the Do Not Track request, but it is a small step in the direction of protecting your personal details online. Read on to find … Read more

Yahoo will ignore "Do Not Track" requests from Internet Explorer 10 because, it claims, Microsoft is violating the concept's intent by turning it on by default.

Today's announcement reignites a conflagration that started with Microsoft's announcement in May, and became even more incendiary earlier this month when the Digital Advertising Alliance said advertising companies that choose to ignore Do Not Track requests "automatically set in IE10 or any other browser" would not be penalized.

Yahoo said in a blog post this afternoon that the choice to enable Do Not Track should be … Read more

The Do Not Track proposal seems to be causing confusion and frustration among some W3C members charged with approving it.

Once ratified, the DNT policy would require advertisers and other third parties to turn off tracking for Internet users whose browser settings specifically restrict it.

The push for DNT has already created a chasm between advertisers, who naturally want the policy to be as lean as possible, and privacy advocates, who want tough standards.

Browser makers have also been caught in the furor. Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, and Internet Explorer already include DNT settings. But Microsoft has caused waves by … Read more

Editors' note: This is a guest column. See Eric Wheeler's bio below.

Let's start with the good news: Congress won't pass any laws this year to halt the collection of anonymous online user data for ad targeting purposes. But as a consensus on "Do Not Track" continues to elude industry leaders and consumer groups -- to date, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has yet to settle on a definition of what "Do Not Track" even means -- the current DNT chaos suggests that the specter of political action looms ever larger. That … Read more

Search giant Google has included support for the Do Not Track privacy standard in the latest Chrome developer build, released yesterday.

The search giant and browser maker previously said it would implement a solution to help prevent users' actions from being tracked on the Web, and said it would have a solution out for Chrome and its advertising systems "by the end of the year."

Do Not Track is a feature -- slowly making its way to Web browsers -- to help users opt out of tracking cookies and targeted advertisements. But advertisers fear that the privacy setting … Read more

Apache, the most commonly used software to house Web sites, will ignore Microsoft's decision to disable ad-tracking technology by default in Internet Explorer 10.

Microsoft set IE10 and Windows 8 so that, by default, Web sites that observe the Do Not Track (DNT) standard won't track people's behavior. The move was made to "better protect user privacy," the company said.

But protecting user privacy turns out to be a thorny matter in practice -- at least when a standard has to be palatable to advertisers as well as browser makers and people surfing the Web. … Read more

Microsoft is not likely to win over advertisers with its decision to turn on Internet Explorer 10's Do Not Track feature in the RTM version of Windows 8.

The Do Not Track, or DNT, feature is designed to stop third-party Web sites from tracking your online activity. Web sites that find Do Not Track turned on in your browser are supposed to back off. Most browsers leave the setting turned off, leaving it up to the user to decide whether to enable it.

But a blog post from Microsoft Chief Privacy Officer Brendon Lynch confirmed that the company is … Read more