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I think you're putting too much blame on Microsoft here. DNT was always garbage, the fact that as soon as anyone used it (it becoming default for IE being the p

I think you're putting too much blame on Microsoft here. DNT was always garbage, the fact that as soon as anyone used it (it becoming default for IE being the push in this case) it would fall apart just shows that it was always doomed. Shouldn't not being tracked be the default? Shouldn't we be opting into targeted ads, not out of them? Seems reasonable, if DNT weren't garbage, to have it be on by default. But it was garbage and so it was never really any help to anyone anyway. Really, everyone should just install an adblocker, and whitelist sites that are non-invasive, don't track, and that you want to support. Then the responsibility isn't on advertisers not to track us, it's on citizens to whitelist sites that they genuinely should be supporting.

Crespyl 9y ago
I think you're right that "not being tracked" should be the default, in so much as having an adblocker and blacklisting known trackers should be defaults. These are things that my user-agent should be doing automatically to protect me and improve my experience. On the other hand, DNT is intended to be an opt-in polite request for other agents to change their usual behavior. An adblocker or tracking blocker at the browser/user-agent level does nothing to change how the servers that I do connect to behave. It just alters the behavior of my browser to not contact at all unrelated third parties. With DNT, my user-agent still contacts those third parties, but with a request to alter their default behavior. "Please, give me adco.com/somead, but please don't correlate this request with other information you have on me, etc." I do think there's a possible place for something like that, but it has to be opt-in or nobody will listen to it. Trivial examples of other "please deviate from your default behavior" requests are things like "show desktop version" on mobile browsers, Accept/Accept-Language (where supported), etc. On the gripping hand, it's also yet another bit to differentiate me from everyone else, and expecting polite and ethical behavior from advertising corporations probably really is doomed to failure.
- staticassertion 9y ago
  > On the gripping hand, it's also yet another bit to differentiate me from everyone else, and expecting polite and ethical behavior from advertising corporations probably really is doomed to failure. Yeah, I considered bringing this up in my original post - DNT is garbage for a lot of reasons. One of the big ones being that it actually sucks for privacy, especially if it's not used a ton. It's one more thing that can make you trackable.
greglindahl 9y ago
There's no way to overblame Microsoft: There was an industry agreement that involved the compromise of DNT not being the default. Microsoft destroyed the entire agreement, which doesn't benefit consumers at all. Worked out great for the advertising and data-collection industries, though.
- djrogers 9y ago
  There was no 'Industry agreement' or compromise - the whole DNT thing was a slice of cake thrown to us by the advertising industry to keep us quiet for a while.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - qb45 9y ago
    I don't know how relevant/important they were, but there were some advertisers who agreed to respect DNT provided it's set by the user. https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-ticks-off-advertisers-with-ie10-do-not-track-policy/ https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-ticks-off-advertisers-wi...

Crespyl 9y ago

I think you're right that "not being tracked" should be the default, in so much as having an adblocker and blacklisting known trackers should be defaults. These are things that my user-agent should be doing automatically to protect me and improve my experience. On the other hand, DNT is intended to be an opt-in polite request for other agents to change their usual behavior. An adblocker or tracking blocker at the browser/user-agent level does nothing to change how the servers that I do connect to behave. It just alters the behavior of my browser to not contact at all unrelated third parties. With DNT, my user-agent still contacts those third parties, but with a request to alter their default behavior. "Please, give me adco.com/somead, but please don't correlate this request with other information you have on me, etc." I do think there's a possible place for something like that, but it has to be opt-in or nobody will listen to it. Trivial examples of other "please deviate from your default behavior" requests are things like "show desktop version" on mobile browsers, Accept/Accept-Language (where supported), etc. On the gripping hand, it's also yet another bit to differentiate me from everyone else, and expecting polite and ethical behavior from advertising corporations probably really is doomed to failure.

staticassertion 9y ago
> On the gripping hand, it's also yet another bit to differentiate me from everyone else, and expecting polite and ethical behavior from advertising corporations probably really is doomed to failure. Yeah, I considered bringing this up in my original post - DNT is garbage for a lot of reasons. One of the big ones being that it actually sucks for privacy, especially if it's not used a ton. It's one more thing that can make you trackable.

greglindahl 9y ago

There's no way to overblame Microsoft: There was an industry agreement that involved the compromise of DNT not being the default. Microsoft destroyed the entire agreement, which doesn't benefit consumers at all. Worked out great for the advertising and data-collection industries, though.

djrogers 9y ago
There was no 'Industry agreement' or compromise - the whole DNT thing was a slice of cake thrown to us by the advertising industry to keep us quiet for a while.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- qb45 9y ago
  I don't know how relevant/important they were, but there were some advertisers who agreed to respect DNT provided it's set by the user. https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-ticks-off-advertisers-with-ie10-do-not-track-policy/ https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-ticks-off-advertisers-wi...