DuckDuckGo Proposes 'Do-Not-Track Act of 2019' (spreadprivacy.com) 104
"When you turn on the setting in your browser that says 'Do Not Track', you probably expect to no longer be tracked on most websites you visit. Right? Well, you would be wrong," explains DuckDuckGo's blog.
Their recent study found "a quarter of people have turned on this setting" -- representing hundreds of millions of web surfers -- and that most of them were unaware that in fact, "no law requires websites to respect your Do Not Track signals, and the vast majority of sites, including most all of the big tech companies, sadly choose to simply ignore them."
Now they've written draft legislation -- "the Do-Not-Track Act of 2019" -- to "serve as a starting point" for legislators to close this loophole. SearchEngineLand reports: If the act picks up steam and passes into law, sites would be required to cease certain user tracking methods, which means less data available to inform marketing and advertising campaigns. The impact could also cascade into platforms that leverage consumer data, possibly making them less effective. For example, one of the advantages of advertising on a platform like Google or Facebook is the ability to target audiences. If a user enables DNT, the ads displayed to them when browsing those websites won't be informed by their external browsing history...
This proposal is quite far from being signed into law, but the technology is already built into Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge and Internet Explorer. With the adoption of GDPR just a year behind us and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren's proposed legislation to regulate "big tech companies" drawing more attention to digital privacy issues in Washington, the Do-Not-Track Act could be a realistic outcome.
DuckDuckGo says they're announcing their draft legislation because "It is extremely rare to have such an exciting legislative opportunity like this, where the hardest work -- coordinated mainstream technical implementation and widespread consumer adoption -- is already done....
"We hope the Do-Not-Track Act of 2019 serves as a useful guide to start thinking seriously about this amazing legislative opportunity."
Their recent study found "a quarter of people have turned on this setting" -- representing hundreds of millions of web surfers -- and that most of them were unaware that in fact, "no law requires websites to respect your Do Not Track signals, and the vast majority of sites, including most all of the big tech companies, sadly choose to simply ignore them."
Now they've written draft legislation -- "the Do-Not-Track Act of 2019" -- to "serve as a starting point" for legislators to close this loophole. SearchEngineLand reports: If the act picks up steam and passes into law, sites would be required to cease certain user tracking methods, which means less data available to inform marketing and advertising campaigns. The impact could also cascade into platforms that leverage consumer data, possibly making them less effective. For example, one of the advantages of advertising on a platform like Google or Facebook is the ability to target audiences. If a user enables DNT, the ads displayed to them when browsing those websites won't be informed by their external browsing history...
This proposal is quite far from being signed into law, but the technology is already built into Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge and Internet Explorer. With the adoption of GDPR just a year behind us and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren's proposed legislation to regulate "big tech companies" drawing more attention to digital privacy issues in Washington, the Do-Not-Track Act could be a realistic outcome.
DuckDuckGo says they're announcing their draft legislation because "It is extremely rare to have such an exciting legislative opportunity like this, where the hardest work -- coordinated mainstream technical implementation and widespread consumer adoption -- is already done....
"We hope the Do-Not-Track Act of 2019 serves as a useful guide to start thinking seriously about this amazing legislative opportunity."
Sometimes (Score:2)
Host elsewhere? (Score:2)
They can simply host the data collection servers in a jurisdiction where this legislation doesn't apply?
Re: (Score:1)
Yes.
For example, this will have ZERO impact on China's data collection.
Re: (Score:2)
Can we have a we accept/reject cookies flag? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's not a loophole (Score:1)
Now they've written draft legislation -- "the Do-Not-Track Act of 2019" -- to "serve as a starting point" for legislators to close this loophole.
What a bullshit characterisation. A loophole is legislation where you can fulfill the letter of a law without meeting its intent.
A "loophole" is not when there isn't a law in the first place. That's like calling it a "defective roof" when there is no building to be seen anywhere.
This is useless. (Score:1)
Information wants to be free.
If you don't want a site to know something, there is one and only one viable approach: do not tell them that thing.
The internet is global. An American law is not going to stop a site in Somewhereistan from collecting the same data, nor as being an outsourcing center for same. It will not stop less scrupulous sites. All it does is give an illusion.
The real answer is to stop feeding sites data you don't want them to have. That means masking your identity, any information usabl
What I Really Want (Score:1)
What I really want is more things, greater convenience, and higher status among my peers, particularly the hot ones. Will this legislation serve my interests?
The hard part (Score:3)
an exciting legislative opportunity like this, where the hardest work -- coordinated mainstream technical implementation and widespread consumer adoption -- is already done
The hard part of legislation is getting your laws passed by the legislators. Drafting a law that is effective without unacceptable collateral damage, convincing a few politicians of the need to pass your law, and getting them to fight to get it passed, and convincing a majority of them to listen to you instead of the exceedingly well funded lobbyists who wine & dine them on a regular basis. Having a do-not-track button in place and the fact that it is widely ignored may go some way towards convincing politicians that this law is needed, but it's only a small start.
Header works for me, but isn't it deprecated? (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Regulate the browsers instead (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm against unenforceable regulation on principle. It's pretty much impossible to tell whether a site honors a dnt request, and even if you have proof they don't a site can be hosted anywhere in the world so you won't be able to do much to stop it. This is just as stupid as the EU cookie ban, where websites just added an annoying popup that wouldn't even go away if you had cookies and scripts disabled, making matters worse not better.
A more realistic approach would be to regulate the browsers intead. Unlike websites, there is only a handful of popular browsers, so it's easy to keep an eye on them. And Google, Microsoft and Apple do business in most countries in the world so they can be regulated much easier. For example, if browsers were forbidden from accepting third party cookies, and only allowed first party cookies and script on websites that were manually whitelisted by the user, then webdesigners would have an incentive to only use those things when they are actually required. Similar legislation could help with other forms of tracking like persistent storage/fingerprinting etc.
Re: (Score:3)
For example, if browsers were forbidden from accepting third party cookies, and only allowed first party cookies and script on websites that were manually whitelisted by the user, then webdesigners would have an incentive to only use those things when they are actually required.
That doesn’t require legislation... you can do that much already. For example you can use Purify on IOS to block scripts - at first it requires a bit of work as you have to whitelist your frequent sites (assuming you choose to do that), but it’s easy to use and it works well.
Firefox Focus is a stand-alone browser, but it can act as a plugin as well - it blocks most third party trackers. It may be redundant with Purify, but I run both.
What would require legislation is prohibiting behavior like t
Re: (Score:3)
You don't take into account just how important defaults are. Yes, you can block cookies and scripts right now, but many sites will break or flat out refuse to work if you do so. If that was the default behavior then designers would have to take it into account.