Yahoo Will Ignore IE 10's "Do Not Track" 360
dsinc writes "And so it begins... Yahoo has made it official: it won't honor the Do Not Track request issued by Internet Explorer 10. Their justification? '[T]he DNT signal from IE10 doesn't express user intent" and "DNT can be easily abused.'" Wonder what percentage of users would rather be tracked by default.
Shocking (Score:5, Insightful)
See now, the trouble here is that all of these privacy settings rely on corporate "good will", when there is no such thing.
Really, the only way to ensure your privacy is extreme paranoia. Sorry.
Stupid choice from Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shocking (Score:5, Insightful)
No, not at all. The real shock is anyone thinking that Microsoft isn't the one to blame here.
They didn't follow the standard, again, and so they knew the switch in IE would be ignored.
Re:Why not? (Score:0, Insightful)
False. It is configured to do this by default via the httpd.conf, which is easily altered. Saying Apache doesn't honor DNT based on user agent is misleading.
Re:Why assume permission? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why should the rule not be that, absent my express permission for them to track my comings and goings, they do not have permission?
Basically, it should be, this is common sense. The problem now is for those in the advertising industry whose business model has been based on the ability to deceptively trick the majority of users into not realizing just how badly they're being tracked online and how broadly their info is being sold etc.
I think if your business model is based on tricking people into doing something that they would reject if they fully knew and understood what you were doing, then you are doing something wrong.
That said, I think the claims that the industry would just die without the ability to track users are overblown. I think the effectiveness of personalized advertising is exaggerated, as well as the perceived value in compiling detailed user profiles with full web histories. The reason is that targeted advertising doesn't really increase the number of dollars available to chase after goods. Example: you don't really suddenly decide to buy a motorcycle because of a targeted advert ... in most cases you probably decided you wanted a motorcycle first, and then you probably anyway ignored most the adverts in order to do some more solidly grounded market research, e.g. looking at the specs of the bikes, getting some advice from friends or online forums, and looking at what motorcycles actually appeal to you. A targeted ad in that case might make you statistically very slightly more likely to favor another brand .... but for most people the decision will be based mostly on things like advice from friends, comparison of specs, and test rides. And after you buy the motorcycle, those dollars are basically no longer available to spend on all the other crap being advertised online to you.
If targeted advertising based on tracking your data etc. was as useful as has been claimed, Facebook would have made a killing from it, but instead it was a flop, and they have now desperately resorted to just making companies pay for 'sponsored posts' now instead to dump the crap in your feed.
Re:Shocking (Score:5, Insightful)
They didn't follow the standard, again
Anyway it's a pointless standard so the argument is moot. A voluntary standard that gets in the way of profits is a standard that will never be followed.
Re:Shocking (Score:2, Insightful)
MS broke the standard agreement for do-not-track, so I don't blame anyone for ignoring the setting if from IE10. The standard was there for a reason: It was the only chance any site would agree to following the headers intention.
Re:Microsoft should... (Score:4, Insightful)
Is anyone else bothered by the fact that MICROSOFT gives more of a shit about the end user than everyone else?
All that Microsoft did achieve...and all it could achieve is to have others ignore the functionality. They actually destroyed its functionality by embracing it. If Microsoft gave a shit it would be using Tor, or creating similar technology...or even just making their own OS less spyware. I was shocked at how much information Windows 8 wanted from me.
Re:Yahoo has this 100% correct (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
If giving users privacy by default is ignoring the spec then the spec is already meaningless.
As such I and no doubt many others will continue to use ad-blockers and roll out ad-blockers to friends, family, and the businesses we work for to ensure that if they're going to track us regardless of our DNT setting, then they wont get any ad-revenue at all.
So here's the thing, if I go into IE's options and disable DNT, and then re-enable it giving express consent according to the DNT spec then tell me, why is my DNT option still going to be ignored by Apache, Yahoo etc. hmm? Who is breaking the spec to make money and suit themselves then?
Re:*I* Rather be tracked by default (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because before ads and subscription only became the norm there was nothing on the internet whatsoever, no content at all, nope, none whatsoever. Even sites like Wikipedia don't actually exist and we all just imagined them because they don't have ads or tracking so they can't possibly be real.
For what it's worth the quality of content has gone down with the increase in ad-revenue run sites. You only have to look at Slashdot for example - nowadays due to being so reliant on gathering ad-revenue they regularly post stories that are out and out flamebait and not correct, informative, or interesting whatsoever purely to gain ad-revenue. Ad run websites have merely created a race to the bottom- to provide as much untrue inciteful bollocks as possible to make people come and see what the fuss is all about to increase ad revenue.
Re:Shocking (Score:1, Insightful)
That is a VERY recent change to the standard which was put in AFTER MS gave users an option which was well within the standard. Advertisers realised they would be fucked so they changed the standard.
Mod up. Advertisers also made sure Apache ignored it by default as well and frankly bribed them and threatened to hose websites using their network and only supporting IIS unless they caved in.
Re:Shocking (Score:5, Insightful)
Verizon must operate in a non civilised world then.
Correct.
Re:Shocking (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Shocking (Score:4, Insightful)
You're conflating having your physical position logged and having your viewing choices logged. I can't control the former while still using a cellphone, but I can control the latter to some extent by using https forcing and cookie management plugins and a google proxy site like startpage.
Granted it's hardly bulletproof, but it's infinitely better than broadcasting everything in the clear, and having every question that ever pops into my head logged by one corporation.
I'm under no illusion as to how far this setup is from being remotely private. For the tiny amount of effort involved, the modest improvement seems perfectly fine.
Re:Shocking (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh Jesus, it's worse than I thought. Head over to
http://www.w3.org/2012/dnt-ws/
Right on the front page - a hiuge great banner:
"""
Workshop Sponsor
sponsored by Yahoo!
Contact W3C if you are interested in Sponsorship
"""
Corrupt as fuck.