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Legislation doesn't stop criminals. The best way to stop browser tracking online is to make it technologically impossible for malicious actors to track the brow

Legislation doesn't stop criminals. The best way to stop browser tracking online is to make it technologically impossible for malicious actors to track the browser. Everything else is just a band-aide.

danieldk 7y ago
Legislation doesn't stop criminals. But these are incorporated entities. If proper privacy laws are/were put in place and enforced, they would have to honor DNT. This is as much a failing of these companies to respect privacy as it was the failing of governments to protect privacy of their citizens. Besides violating privacy, ad networks have also been a proxy for malware. They should have been sued into oblivion for that as well. I agree that since the proper means have failed, blocking is the best solution. Do people who are not computer savvy a favor and install a proper ad blocker for them. We can do much better than 26%.
- danShumway 7y ago
  It's a matter of what order you want to tackle things in. I'm not interested in only stopping the worst actors. I want to stop all tracking, and if I can't, I'll settle for stopping some of the worst actors through solutions like legislation. I understand that some people come from the opposite direction -- they try to stop the obvious bad actors with laws, and if those laws fail, then they'll look for solutions that put control in the hands of individuals. I don't dislike those people, but my perspective is that people who focus on tracking by corporations don't have a good perspective of the entire problem. > Do people who are not computer savvy a favor and install a proper ad blocker for them. We can do much better than 26%. Amen on that. I'd like to see the ad industry collapse, but that's a separate conversation. I'm not convinced that pervasive advertising to the degree we currently see is good for society as a whole. I would encourage people to block ads even if they didn't include any trackers at all. I would even block ads off of one-way mediums like the radio if I could.

danieldk 7y ago

Legislation doesn't stop criminals. But these are incorporated entities. If proper privacy laws are/were put in place and enforced, they would have to honor DNT. This is as much a failing of these companies to respect privacy as it was the failing of governments to protect privacy of their citizens. Besides violating privacy, ad networks have also been a proxy for malware. They should have been sued into oblivion for that as well. I agree that since the proper means have failed, blocking is the best solution. Do people who are not computer savvy a favor and install a proper ad blocker for them. We can do much better than 26%.

danShumway 7y ago
It's a matter of what order you want to tackle things in. I'm not interested in only stopping the worst actors. I want to stop all tracking, and if I can't, I'll settle for stopping some of the worst actors through solutions like legislation. I understand that some people come from the opposite direction -- they try to stop the obvious bad actors with laws, and if those laws fail, then they'll look for solutions that put control in the hands of individuals. I don't dislike those people, but my perspective is that people who focus on tracking by corporations don't have a good perspective of the entire problem. > Do people who are not computer savvy a favor and install a proper ad blocker for them. We can do much better than 26%. Amen on that. I'd like to see the ad industry collapse, but that's a separate conversation. I'm not convinced that pervasive advertising to the degree we currently see is good for society as a whole. I would encourage people to block ads even if they didn't include any trackers at all. I would even block ads off of one-way mediums like the radio if I could.