IE 10 'Do Not Track' Attacked by Trackers
I read the headline, "IE 10's 'Do No Track' Setting Under Attack" and wondered what on earth could be wrong with this privacy feature?
Then I found out that the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) is the one with all the complaints. Here's what they whined to Steve Ballmer about: Do Not Track "will undercut the effectiveness of our members' advertising and, as a result, drastically damage the online experience by reducing the Internet content and offerings that such advertising supports. This result will harm consumers, hurt competition, and undermine American innovation and leadership in the Internet economy." Wow. Sounds like Do Not Tack, not communism, is the true enemy of capitalism.
Do Not Track is on by default in IE 10 and simply tells the advertisers that the end user doesn't want to be tracked.
While other browsers have the feature, users have to opt-in. The ANA apparently worries that almost no IE 10 will turn tracking on. And this is actually bad for the user. Here's the logic: If you can turn off tracking, it's like turning off TV commercials. The result is that advertising will suffer and these advertisers won't be able to "subsidize Internet offerings, or pay more for offerings that they currently enjoy for free or at a low cost."
But no one says Internet advertisers have to stop advertising. They just can't spy on what we do.
This may all be moot as some advertisers are expected to ignore or bypass the Do Not Track settings and track us anyway. What do you make of all this? Let us all know by writing to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/17/2012 at 1:19 PM