5 ms·

Why is the DNT header deprecated? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/DNT https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/DN...

Why is the DNT header deprecated? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/DNT https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/DN... It’s still useful if supported by some browsers, no?

detaro 5y ago
If I remember right the argument is something along the lines of "basically nobody respects it, and those that do are likely to be "good" actors anyway, so it has nearly no positive effect and doesn't solve what it aimed to, while setting it to a non-default value gives all the fingerprinting systems one more bit to fingerprint of, so it also has downsides --> not worth supporting". EDIT: I guess a counter-argument is that if it were a recognized standard you'd have an easier time arguing that respecting it might be a legal requirement/it would encourage such legislation. DNT was originally inspired by FTC comments in the direction that it would be good to have.
malka 5y ago
nobody respect it, thanks to Microsoft that made it a default on IE.
- musicale 5y ago
  It seems like a reasonable default setting if most people don't want to be tracked. If they do, then they can opt in.
kevincox 5y ago
The main reason is that Microsoft enabled it by default for IE, therefore defeating the whole point of the opt-in flag. If websites didn't want to track all users they just wouldn't have added the tracking, however opting out a small number of users may make sense. Biggest downside is that the DNT header is 1 more bit of fingerprinting surface. That being said there are still some sites that support it, mostly smaller sites. For example if you set it when you visit by blog I skip loading analytics. I like analytics because it is interesting to see what posts are popular and who is referring me traffic, but I am more than happy to opt out the users who are against it.

5 ms·

Why is the DNT header deprecated? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/DNT https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/DN...

by pacifika 5y ago

detaro 5y ago
If I remember right the argument is something along the lines of "basically nobody respects it, and those that do are likely to be "good" actors anyway, so it has nearly no positive effect and doesn't solve what it aimed to, while setting it to a non-default value gives all the fingerprinting systems one more bit to fingerprint of, so it also has downsides --> not worth supporting". EDIT: I guess a counter-argument is that if it were a recognized standard you'd have an easier time arguing that respecting it might be a legal requirement/it would encourage such legislation. DNT was originally inspired by FTC comments in the direction that it would be good to have.
malka 5y ago
nobody respect it, thanks to Microsoft that made it a default on IE.
- musicale 5y ago
  It seems like a reasonable default setting if most people don't want to be tracked. If they do, then they can opt in.
kevincox 5y ago
The main reason is that Microsoft enabled it by default for IE, therefore defeating the whole point of the opt-in flag. If websites didn't want to track all users they just wouldn't have added the tracking, however opting out a small number of users may make sense. Biggest downside is that the DNT header is 1 more bit of fingerprinting surface. That being said there are still some sites that support it, mostly smaller sites. For example if you set it when you visit by blog I skip loading analytics. I like analytics because it is interesting to see what posts are popular and who is referring me traffic, but I am more than happy to opt out the users who are against it.