Internet Giants To Honor the 'No' In 'No Tracking' 118
theodp writes "The WSJ reports that a coalition of Internet giants including Google has agreed to support a do-not-track button to be embedded in most Web browsers — a move that the industry had been resisting for more than a year. The new do-not-track button isn't going to stop all Web tracking. The companies have agreed to stop using the data about people's Web browsing habits to customize ads, and have agreed not to use the data for employment, credit, health-care or insurance purposes. But the data can still be used for some purposes such as 'market research' and 'product development' and can still be obtained by law enforcement officers. Meanwhile, after Google got caught last week bypassing privacy settings on Safari, and was accused of also circumventing IE's P3P Privacy Protection feature, CBS MoneyWatch contacted Mozilla to see if it had noticed Google bypassing Firefox's privacy controls. After reports that Google ponied up close to a billion dollars to Mozilla to beat out a Microsoft bid, this seems to be one of those have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife type questions that has no good answer. Anyway, according to a statement attributed to Alex Fowler, global privacy and public policy lead for Mozilla: 'Our testing did not reveal any instances of Google bypassing user privacy settings.'"
Re:Should be 'Opt-In' (Score:5, Informative)
Insightful? Really?
This keeps coming up...
http://blog.mozilla.com/privacy/2011/11/09/dnt-cannot-be-default/ [mozilla.com]
"As Do Not Track picks up steam and standardization is well underway in the W3C, people have begun asking, âoeIf Do Not Track is so good for the web, why donâ(TM)t you turn it on by default?â
Frankly, it becomes meaningless if we enable it by default for all our users. Do Not Track is intended to express an individualâ(TM)s choice, or preference, to not be tracked. Itâ(TM)s important that the signal represents a choice made by the person behind the keyboard and not the software maker, because ultimately itâ(TM)s not Firefox being tracked, itâ(TM)s the user.
Mozillaâ(TM)s mission is to give users this choice and control over their browsing experience. We wonâ(TM)t turn on Do Not Track by default because then it would be Mozilla making the choice, not the individual. Since this is a choice for the user to make, we cannot send the signal automatically but will empower them with the tools they need to do it.
Do Not Track is not Mozillaâ(TM)s position on tracking, itâ(TM)s the individualâ(TM)s â" and thatâ(TM)s what makes it great! For that reason we have no plans to turn on Do Not Track by default."
Re:Should be 'Opt-In' (Score:5, Informative)
??? They do present the choice to the user.
Options->Privacy (where you would expect privacy stuff to be)
And it is at the very top of the tab. A big checkbox.
Tracking:
"Tell websites I do not want to be tracked"
Really. This is just pure nonsense, people.
Re:Still dont trust them (Score:4, Informative)
I've added ghostery and do not track plus. Both are aggressive and blocking tracking info.
Re:Name one good thing (Score:5, Informative)
Can anybody name a single good thing that came out of all this enormous data collection effort? What is better for the consumer today than it was twenty years ago when there was no internet and no tracking?
The problem here is that you see yourself as the consumer. For a great deal of sites where the money is made on the internet, you are not the consumer, you're the product.