Internet Giants To Honor the 'No' In 'No Tracking'

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.'"

Should be 'Opt-In'

[sohmc]

On Firefox, the "Tell websites I do not want to be tracked" is not enabled by default. I don't understand why this is not the default action.

The option should be "Tell websites I'm okay with being tracked" and should be ticked off by default.

I know when the feature was announced and then released, it was talked about for a few days and then went by the wayside. This was primarily due to the fact that Google, et al, had NO obligation to actually abide by this setting.

With the White House (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46495868/ns/technology_and_science-security/) announcing a new privacy plan, it will be interesting to see if the companies decide to self-regulate or if it will take the force of law to make them regulate.

Re:Should be 'Opt-In'

[Svippy]

Ok, but why Firefox would care about Google?

Do you know from where Mozilla gets their money?

Re:Should be 'Opt-In'

[Anonymous Coward]

On Firefox, the "Tell websites I do not want to be tracked" is not enabled by default. I don't understand why this is not the default action.

The whole point of Do Not Track is that it indicates a specific conscious request by the user not to be tracked. Anyone ignoring it is explicitly deciding not to respect the user's wishes and can't claim otherwise. Having it enabled by default allows it to be handwaved away as some arcane browser setting that "real users" don't know or care about.

Re:Still dont trust them

[CastrTroy]

I very much agree with this. I've disabled 3rd party cookies, delete all cookies after I shut down the browser (which I do frequently), and I have flashblock. I haven't gone so far as to use no-script, but that's another option for people who want to be tracked even less. Sure Google and other big sites can start adhering to the do-not-track stuff, but it's the smaller guys that worry me a lot more than Google.

Bullshit.

[__aavqan3009]

"We lied earlier but NOW we promise to not track you". Bullshit.