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.'"
Still dont trust them (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm going to still use client side aggressive tactics to force them to do "no tracking" or at least make it hard for them. Sorry, but I don't trust them and all it takes is one scumbag company (doubleclick) to act as a harvester that everyone else uses.
But NoScript et. al works better... (Score:4, Interesting)
Until the do-not-track feature becomes a law (which I hope it does, though I'm sure these companies will find ways around it), there should be more education about NoScript and other such alternatives to those who really care about controlling their privacy and exposure.
Re:theodp needs a lesson in being objective (Score:4, Interesting)
Frankly this corporate cheerleading is getting a little old and one begins to wonder if there isn't something to the rumor that Google pays posters to hang around at geek sites to protect their branding.
So which company is it that pays you to do it then? Should we look for evidence of you being a shill, if we're being so suspicious of people?
Google "Does no evil"
People who claim that Google's motto is "do no evil" instead of "don't be evil" in the face of basically anyone who pays any attention correcting them continuously is either being willfully ignorant or is being paid to be willfully ignorant. Shills prefer "do no evil" because it's an impossible standard: Nobody agrees what evil is. If they work with copyright holders then they're evil MAFIAA censors, if they refuse then they're evil pirate sympathizers wrecking the economy, if they look for middle ground then they're both.
Now let's consider the disregard for facts (typical of shills):
if they weren't they wouldn't have become a fortune 50 company
Apple and Microsoft are in the Fortune 50. Google is number 92 (on the 2011 list).
That's just this post. Do you want to see if anyone is interested in looking through your history for more evidence that someone is paying you to attack Google (like repeated postings of the same talking points), or are you finished trolling?