4 ms·

Google Releases "Do Not Track" Extension for Chrome

25 points by dcawrey 16y ago

jdp23 16y ago
Hot on the heels of Firefox' "Do not Track" announcement* ... momentum is building. http://www.futureofprivacy.org/2011/01/24/breaking-news-firefox-do-not-track-advances/ http://www.futureofprivacy.org/2011/01/24/breaking-news-fire...
paulirish 16y ago
Blog post: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/01/keep-your-opt-outs.html http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/01/keep-your-opt... Extension source: https://code.google.com/p/chrome-opt-out-extension/ https://code.google.com/p/chrome-opt-out-extension/
jacquesm 16y ago
Now to make such stuff the default and change being tracked to 'opt-in'.
- wmf 16y ago
  Google is taking control of the debate to prevent exactly that.
- jbooth 16y ago
  The whole internet works on free-because-of-advertising, aside from Hacker News I guess which is just an advertisement for Ycombinator. Sure we want to pull the rug out from under that one? What's so bad about content creators getting maximum value from the eyeballs they attract?
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    You can advertise stuff without having to know everything about your visitors, standard demographics kept newspapers supplied with ink and papers for well over a century.
    - jbooth 16y ago
      Well, turning "ip:25.43.251.5, user-agent:firefox" into "male, 18-19" actually requires a fair bit of that tracking stuff. Also, classifieds are what kept newspapers supplied with ink and papers. Branding-targeted advertising was a side revenue, and mass conversion-targeted advertising as we know it now didn't really exist yet (although you can call classifieds a small-scale conversion targetted ad, I suppose).
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        Indeed, classifieds are simply ads targeted at a local audience. As for the male 18-19 bit, that is something that a site would deduce from a typical sample or survey, not from invasive tracking. btw, how did you get my IP address? You got the age wrong ;)
        jbooth 16y ago
        Well, RE: samples or surveys, users don't fill them out very often, which is why ad networks and information providers drop a cookie whenever they manage to find that out about someone for later recall. If you're just some blog, no way people are filling that out on your site.. so you get a deal with a tracking ad company that combines your traffic with data to make it more valuable than just run-of-the-network generic traffic.
        jacquesm 16y ago
        The samples and surveys I'm referring to are paid for by the media company, typically conducted by third parties with some credibility in the field. Plenty of people are on a 'panel' of this kind, they periodically fill out surveys about the brands they consume, the tv programmes they watch and sites they visit. And yes, that's geared towards the larger content producers, it would take some doing to get similar metrics for smaller companies and blogs, but I can imagine that you could create a series of 'verticals' that would form the aggregate of a whole series of blogs and blogs could then be categorized as being part of a vertical to be included in the surveys in a statistically relevant manner. So it's not a survey that suddenly pops up on the site (though that's been done, the quality of those is typically not as good).
there 16y ago
users savvy enough to find/install extensions are probably using adblock or other things anyway. this doesn't really mean much from google until they make it a built-in feature of chrome so all of their users benefit from it.
yanw 16y ago
'Do-Not-Track' is a bullshit, talking point gov't mandated initiative, relevant ads offer better user experience, they are not 'evil'.
- beoba 16y ago
  You've got it backwards -- they're worried that the FTC is going to put the hammer down if they keep going with business as usual.
  - yanw 16y ago
    I'm not complaining about the extension, it's a good move in that regards, I'm just bothered by the whole concept of the so called "do not track", to me it seems nonsensical and damaging.
- mquander 16y ago
  Relevant ads might offer a better user experience than irrelevant ads. You know what offers an even better experience? No ads. I'm in favor of anything that makes an free-with-advertising business model less practical. Make me pay five bucks a month, if that's what the service costs; there's no technical reason why it shouldn't be easy to set that up. Don't slyly take the five bucks from me piecemeal, immeasurably, by replacing the things I care about with distracting ads. I fucking hate it.
  - yanw 16y ago
    An advertising model isn't interchangeable with a subscription one, besides the fact that people won't pay for everything because not everything is worth paying for. Ads help a thousand flowers bloom, startups can experiment and throw ideas out there to see what sticks without requiring the user to pay to discover and interact with their creations, the ad model is very much an innovation model. Many of the services available today won’t exist unless they are free, and are used by many users which and the usage patterns are collected as feedback to improve and evolve said services.
  - jbooth 16y ago
beoba 16y ago
It's too late for me - once user tracking became prevalent I switched to using ad blockers and haven't looked back.
slvrspoon 16y ago
See ChromeBlock https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/epanfjkfahimkgomnigadpkobaefekcd https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/epanfjkfahimkgom...
randall 16y ago
I wonder how "Do Not Track" will effect advertising biz models. Part of the allure of online is that you can not only verify that each ad was served (something impossible to prove pre-internet) but you're also able to target really well. I wonder if services will respond in some sort of anti-consumer arms race, by limiting service features or the sort. (Imagine if FF/Goog released an AdBlock style plugin.) I'm not saying it'll be as drastic as blocking content if you're not tracked, but I am curious what the HN community's thoughts are on the idea of a tracking arms race.

25 points by dcawrey 16y ago

jdp23 16y ago

Hot on the heels of Firefox' "Do not Track" announcement* ... momentum is building. http://www.futureofprivacy.org/2011/01/24/breaking-news-firefox-do-not-track-advances/ http://www.futureofprivacy.org/2011/01/24/breaking-news-fire...

paulirish 16y ago

Blog post: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/01/keep-your-opt-outs.html http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/01/keep-your-opt... Extension source: https://code.google.com/p/chrome-opt-out-extension/ https://code.google.com/p/chrome-opt-out-extension/

jacquesm 16y ago

Now to make such stuff the default and change being tracked to 'opt-in'.

wmf 16y ago
Google is taking control of the debate to prevent exactly that.
jbooth 16y ago
The whole internet works on free-because-of-advertising, aside from Hacker News I guess which is just an advertisement for Ycombinator. Sure we want to pull the rug out from under that one? What's so bad about content creators getting maximum value from the eyeballs they attract?
- jacquesm 16y ago
  You can advertise stuff without having to know everything about your visitors, standard demographics kept newspapers supplied with ink and papers for well over a century.
  - jbooth 16y ago
    Well, turning "ip:25.43.251.5, user-agent:firefox" into "male, 18-19" actually requires a fair bit of that tracking stuff. Also, classifieds are what kept newspapers supplied with ink and papers. Branding-targeted advertising was a side revenue, and mass conversion-targeted advertising as we know it now didn't really exist yet (although you can call classifieds a small-scale conversion targetted ad, I suppose).
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      Indeed, classifieds are simply ads targeted at a local audience. As for the male 18-19 bit, that is something that a site would deduce from a typical sample or survey, not from invasive tracking. btw, how did you get my IP address? You got the age wrong ;)
      - jbooth 16y ago
        Well, RE: samples or surveys, users don't fill them out very often, which is why ad networks and information providers drop a cookie whenever they manage to find that out about someone for later recall. If you're just some blog, no way people are filling that out on your site.. so you get a deal with a tracking ad company that combines your traffic with data to make it more valuable than just run-of-the-network generic traffic.
        jacquesm 16y ago
        The samples and surveys I'm referring to are paid for by the media company, typically conducted by third parties with some credibility in the field. Plenty of people are on a 'panel' of this kind, they periodically fill out surveys about the brands they consume, the tv programmes they watch and sites they visit. And yes, that's geared towards the larger content producers, it would take some doing to get similar metrics for smaller companies and blogs, but I can imagine that you could create a series of 'verticals' that would form the aggregate of a whole series of blogs and blogs could then be categorized as being part of a vertical to be included in the surveys in a statistically relevant manner. So it's not a survey that suddenly pops up on the site (though that's been done, the quality of those is typically not as good).

there 16y ago

users savvy enough to find/install extensions are probably using adblock or other things anyway. this doesn't really mean much from google until they make it a built-in feature of chrome so all of their users benefit from it.

yanw 16y ago

'Do-Not-Track' is a bullshit, talking point gov't mandated initiative, relevant ads offer better user experience, they are not 'evil'.

beoba 16y ago
You've got it backwards -- they're worried that the FTC is going to put the hammer down if they keep going with business as usual.
- yanw 16y ago
  I'm not complaining about the extension, it's a good move in that regards, I'm just bothered by the whole concept of the so called "do not track", to me it seems nonsensical and damaging.
mquander 16y ago
Relevant ads might offer a better user experience than irrelevant ads. You know what offers an even better experience? No ads. I'm in favor of anything that makes an free-with-advertising business model less practical. Make me pay five bucks a month, if that's what the service costs; there's no technical reason why it shouldn't be easy to set that up. Don't slyly take the five bucks from me piecemeal, immeasurably, by replacing the things I care about with distracting ads. I fucking hate it.
- yanw 16y ago
  An advertising model isn't interchangeable with a subscription one, besides the fact that people won't pay for everything because not everything is worth paying for. Ads help a thousand flowers bloom, startups can experiment and throw ideas out there to see what sticks without requiring the user to pay to discover and interact with their creations, the ad model is very much an innovation model. Many of the services available today won’t exist unless they are free, and are used by many users which and the usage patterns are collected as feedback to improve and evolve said services.
- jbooth 16y ago

beoba 16y ago

It's too late for me - once user tracking became prevalent I switched to using ad blockers and haven't looked back.

slvrspoon 16y ago

See ChromeBlock https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/epanfjkfahimkgomnigadpkobaefekcd https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/epanfjkfahimkgom...

randall 16y ago

I wonder how "Do Not Track" will effect advertising biz models. Part of the allure of online is that you can not only verify that each ad was served (something impossible to prove pre-internet) but you're also able to target really well. I wonder if services will respond in some sort of anti-consumer arms race, by limiting service features or the sort. (Imagine if FF/Goog released an AdBlock style plugin.) I'm not saying it'll be as drastic as blocking content if you're not tracked, but I am curious what the HN community's thoughts are on the idea of a tracking arms race.