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Unfortunately, DNT is not a clear declaration of intent, because privacy evangelists view it as their moral duty to make that decision for everyone. It's an in

Unfortunately, DNT is not a clear declaration of intent, because privacy evangelists view it as their moral duty to make that decision for everyone. It's an inconvenient fact that - perhaps a decade ago - we had DNT, and advertisers were starting to respect it, but then browser makers decided to default it to on, making it pointless.

gpvos 5y ago
Yet default-on is the only reasonable default setting.
guitarbill 5y ago
"Browser makers" - you mean Microsoft in IE10? Were there any other browsers that did this? And what did privacy evangelists have to do with it? I'm not sure that was the sole downfall; DNT also had no teeth because it couldn't really be enforced.
Zarel 5y ago
You're very close, but I think "browser makers" makes it sound like it was more than one. Microsoft Internet Explorer defaulted it to on. Every other browser was in agreement that it would only get advertising industry buy-in if it was defaulted to off. I think Microsoft's default-on stance was likely intentional sabotage - Google operates a big ad network and would have to deal with a lot of the fall-out.
tomjen3 5y ago
Not pointless. We know that most people are not okay with tracking (the opt out on iPhones are 90+%), so the right setting is to be one by default. However while the ad industry might be okay with a few nerds opting out they weren't okay with most of the general public opting out and so they spread stories like the one you repeated.
- scatters 5y ago
  To get to 90%+, Apple had to present their users with a forced choice. The majority of users might prefer not to be tracked if they're put on the spot and required to give an answer, but how many would actually go to the trouble of changing a default?
TheCoelacanth 5y ago
Defaulting to no tracking is the correct default for advertisers that are respecting GDPR. If someone wants to be tracked, they can opt in by turning it off.
deworms 5y ago
Why shouldn't the default be to not be tracked, and only start being tracked if you explicitly want to? Advertisers always frame this conflict as though it's absurd to expect them to just stay out of our lives, and anything that makes it easy or default to avoid them should be rejected as impossible.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  The perfect is the enemy of the good. There's a lot of money in advertising. The feasible choices are between (a) DNT, off by default, that the more responsible and regulated side of the ad industry respects or (b) DNT, on by default, that everyone ignores. Which one is the greater good? In other words, you're welcome to walk up to me, slap me in the face, and call me a son-of-a-bitch... but that's probably not a great start to a conversation that ends with "Would you please work with me on this?"
  - mnw21cam 5y ago
    > In other words, you're welcome to walk up to me, slap me in the face, and call me a son-of-a-bitch... but that's probably not a great start to a conversation that ends with "Would you please work with me on this?" Wow, that's quite some re-framing going on there, if you're casting yourself as the advertiser in that sentence. It's more like if you were regularly "borrowing" my car without permission. Do not track is a bit like the lock on the car, which obviously you can get around in 30 seconds flat. Everyone has a lock on their car, right, and it's installed by default, so by the advertisement industry's reasoning it isn't a true indication of whether I want you "borrowing" it. If you were regularly "borrowing" my car without permission, it'd be reasonable for me to walk up to you, slap you in the face, and call you a SOB, but I'd me more likely to just call the cops. Data about me is owned by me, and other entities can process it only in strongly limited circumstances. That's the default position, by the standard of basic decency, and also in law. Stop making it sound like me demanding control over my own possessions is unreasonable.
  - deworms 5y ago
    They didn't respect that, though. And no, I don't want to "work on this", I want to not be tracked by default.
klabb3 5y ago
> Unfortunately, DNT is not a clear declaration of intent Often it is. Firefox, Brave and Safari explicitly advertise themselves as privacy-friendly browsers. That leaves non-savvy users who just use whatever defaults exists, but there is an even stronger argument to protect precisely those people - you can't consent to something you don't yet understand. Tracking can leak extremely sensitive information, just like microphone, screen sharing and webcam permissions could. Protecting the user is a sane default in all of these cases. The fact that personal data has commercial value is secondary, just like it would be with webcam access. Imo, the only meaningful difference between tracking and camera access is that fully-fledged tracking was an accidental side effect of third-party cookies, and before "we" understood the implications of that a trillion dollar industry was established. The reason we're apathetic to tracking is because it's abstract and novel, whereas snooping to your audio or video is easier to grok.
stubish 5y ago
Servers have access to both the DNT header and the browser id. Advertisers could have argued that the DNT header sent by some browsers was not an informed decision and likely forced those browsers back to explicit opt-in/opt-out by users. But they did not. They used the first escape hatch they found to ignore the header completely, kicking the can further down the road. Of course they did, because every body knows how many people will opt-in to tracking without being bribed.

gpvos 5y ago

Yet default-on is the only reasonable default setting.

guitarbill 5y ago

"Browser makers" - you mean Microsoft in IE10? Were there any other browsers that did this? And what did privacy evangelists have to do with it? I'm not sure that was the sole downfall; DNT also had no teeth because it couldn't really be enforced.

Zarel 5y ago

You're very close, but I think "browser makers" makes it sound like it was more than one. Microsoft Internet Explorer defaulted it to on. Every other browser was in agreement that it would only get advertising industry buy-in if it was defaulted to off. I think Microsoft's default-on stance was likely intentional sabotage - Google operates a big ad network and would have to deal with a lot of the fall-out.

tomjen3 5y ago

Not pointless. We know that most people are not okay with tracking (the opt out on iPhones are 90+%), so the right setting is to be one by default. However while the ad industry might be okay with a few nerds opting out they weren't okay with most of the general public opting out and so they spread stories like the one you repeated.

scatters 5y ago
To get to 90%+, Apple had to present their users with a forced choice. The majority of users might prefer not to be tracked if they're put on the spot and required to give an answer, but how many would actually go to the trouble of changing a default?

TheCoelacanth 5y ago

Defaulting to no tracking is the correct default for advertisers that are respecting GDPR. If someone wants to be tracked, they can opt in by turning it off.

deworms 5y ago

Why shouldn't the default be to not be tracked, and only start being tracked if you explicitly want to? Advertisers always frame this conflict as though it's absurd to expect them to just stay out of our lives, and anything that makes it easy or default to avoid them should be rejected as impossible.

ethbr0 5y ago
The perfect is the enemy of the good. There's a lot of money in advertising. The feasible choices are between (a) DNT, off by default, that the more responsible and regulated side of the ad industry respects or (b) DNT, on by default, that everyone ignores. Which one is the greater good? In other words, you're welcome to walk up to me, slap me in the face, and call me a son-of-a-bitch... but that's probably not a great start to a conversation that ends with "Would you please work with me on this?"
- mnw21cam 5y ago
  > In other words, you're welcome to walk up to me, slap me in the face, and call me a son-of-a-bitch... but that's probably not a great start to a conversation that ends with "Would you please work with me on this?" Wow, that's quite some re-framing going on there, if you're casting yourself as the advertiser in that sentence. It's more like if you were regularly "borrowing" my car without permission. Do not track is a bit like the lock on the car, which obviously you can get around in 30 seconds flat. Everyone has a lock on their car, right, and it's installed by default, so by the advertisement industry's reasoning it isn't a true indication of whether I want you "borrowing" it. If you were regularly "borrowing" my car without permission, it'd be reasonable for me to walk up to you, slap you in the face, and call you a SOB, but I'd me more likely to just call the cops. Data about me is owned by me, and other entities can process it only in strongly limited circumstances. That's the default position, by the standard of basic decency, and also in law. Stop making it sound like me demanding control over my own possessions is unreasonable.
- deworms 5y ago
  They didn't respect that, though. And no, I don't want to "work on this", I want to not be tracked by default.

klabb3 5y ago

> Unfortunately, DNT is not a clear declaration of intent Often it is. Firefox, Brave and Safari explicitly advertise themselves as privacy-friendly browsers. That leaves non-savvy users who just use whatever defaults exists, but there is an even stronger argument to protect precisely those people - you can't consent to something you don't yet understand. Tracking can leak extremely sensitive information, just like microphone, screen sharing and webcam permissions could. Protecting the user is a sane default in all of these cases. The fact that personal data has commercial value is secondary, just like it would be with webcam access. Imo, the only meaningful difference between tracking and camera access is that fully-fledged tracking was an accidental side effect of third-party cookies, and before "we" understood the implications of that a trillion dollar industry was established. The reason we're apathetic to tracking is because it's abstract and novel, whereas snooping to your audio or video is easier to grok.

stubish 5y ago

Servers have access to both the DNT header and the browser id. Advertisers could have argued that the DNT header sent by some browsers was not an informed decision and likely forced those browsers back to explicit opt-in/opt-out by users. But they did not. They used the first escape hatch they found to ignore the header completely, kicking the can further down the road. Of course they did, because every body knows how many people will opt-in to tracking without being bribed.