19 ms·

Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

365 points by mossTechnician 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
josefritzishere 2y ago
[flagged]
hoseja 2y ago
Was it anything but another bit for identification?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
hkt 2y ago
I suppose it follows that they'd remove a feature that virtually nobody respects.
ezfe 2y ago
The feature was being used to track people because of how low usage was
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- oytis 2y ago
  An obvious solution would be to turn it on by default
  - AlotOfReading 2y ago
    That's what IE 10 did. It led all the major advertisers to make public statements that they were going to ignore the header as a form of protest.
    - kjrfghslkdjfl 2y ago
      [dead]
    - registeredcorn 2y ago
      Sounds good to me. When (major advertiser/website detected): Prompt user, "Warning: (Advertiser/website) insists on tracking you, and have made public statements affirming this position. Your privacy is not enforceable on this website."
      - tehjoker 2y ago
        more like class action or regulatory step in. in theory market transactions are based on mutual consent. if consent isn't respected, then that's a problem.
        registeredcorn 2y ago
        I actually ended up expanding on this a bit in a different comment thread, if you're interested. :) [1] It's a tough position to be in because the thing that really gets heads turning is regulation, licensing, and fines, but...when it comes to website design (assuming we're not talking about illicit material) I get queasy at the idea of (the/any) government saying, "You're not running your website the right way! Pay us money!" Perhaps the few exceptions being something like: PII storage, or payment processing. I dread the idea of anyone saying you have to, say, use a specific font type or whatever, you know? I don't want to put that burden on website owners, or complicate my own life. I'd rather inform the end user, point out the biggest offenders, and leave them be. "Detect, inform, and move on." Big scary message[2] then leave it to the user to decide what they want to do. "Oh, they're going to track me? Let me look up that VPN-thingy I keep hearing my nephew talk about." [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=registeredcorn#42380874 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=registeredcorn#42380... [2] https://i.imgur.com/W885J9X.png https://i.imgur.com/W885J9X.png
        tehjoker 2y ago
        I don't think there's much support for specifying a specific font. I do think there is support for making companies do things that don't exploit users.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    This was used as an excuse by sites and advertisers to not support it actually. Because some browsers did that. That wouldn't fly in the EU though because tracking is supposed to be opt in so enabling by default is fine.
  - dbbk 2y ago
    That's exactly what killed it. Everyone started ignoring it once Edge defaulted it to on.
    - JohnFen 2y ago
      But without it defaulting to "on", it would have died anyway. That's why the entire effort was doomed from the very start. The only way that anything like this can possibly succeed is through legislation.
Maskawanian 2y ago
[flagged]
- gruez 2y ago
  >they became an ad company ???
  - mossTechnician 2y ago
    Maybe this is a reference to: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/advertising/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/advertising/
  - perihelions 2y ago
    - "...But, for right now on the internet of today, a big part of the answer is online advertising. We started engaging in this space because the way the industry works today is fundamentally broken. It doesn’t put people first, it’s not privacy-respecting, and it’s increasingly anti-competitive. There have to be better options. Mozilla can play a key role in creating these better options not just by advocating for them, but also by actually building them..." https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/digital-advertising-privacy/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/digital-advertising-priv... - "...We’ve been collaborating with Meta on this, because any successful mechanism will need to be actually useful to advertisers, and designing something that Mozilla and Meta are simultaneously happy with is a good indicator we’ve hit the mark..." https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1e43w7v/a_word_about_private_attribution_in_firefox/ https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1e43w7v/a_word_abo... Etc. (You have to read these things *carefully*, because, the way Mozilla corpos write press, they obfuscate words to the point you can barely make out the sense from the noise).
  - ddtaylor 2y ago
    Mozilla changed their goals over the last 5 years pretty drastically in an effort to chase revenue. It's a failing strategy assuming you want go remain a privacy focused organization.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
lambdadelirium 2y ago
Well it never worked, nothing of value was lost. Although, a little concerning in the light of many Mozilla's recent recruitment decisions and especially AI shilling focus
- Semaphor 2y ago
  IIRC geizhals.eu (price comparison site) respects it. They are probably the only ones, though :D
Jleagle 2y ago
As a web developer i don't think i have ever supported this feature, but only because i never remembered to. It's a pretty easy feature to add, but unless browsers can force it, you're better off with uBLock.
- fein 2y ago
  No one (corporate) supports it unless it comes enabled by default with whatever compliance service/ plugin used on their sites. The best combo I've found so far is Waterfox + uBO. I'm sure there are others, but this works well if you don't want to use a chromium based browser.
LinuxBender 2y ago
In my unpopular opinion it was a silly cart before the horse idea to begin with. I do not believe I need to be a lawyer to suggest there would first need to be a set of laws with some serious consequences if a company does not respect the header and can not prove it has respected the header when a court, legal team or the individual request proof. And that is only useful if the company is in a country that must respect such laws. Each country would need their own corresponding laws. And of course the devious companies would move their headquarters to some island nation. By consequences I mean a percentage of their revenue vs profit which can be waved away by accountants is seized, donated to people affected by shady companies and all the leaders of the company must be marched through cities by shame nuns whilst citizens are permitted to throw rotten food and excrement at them. Anything short of this would just be the cost of doing business.
elashri 2y ago
I understand that many people here have a bad taste of Mozilla's recent actions in many aspects. But the reality here is that this is at worst removing something that almost nobody respected. It was based on honor system and even in Switzerland they do have random inspections for honor system. Browsers never had any enforcement of this feature. And ironically it was used as additional data point of tracking privacy aware people who went out of the way to enable it.
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  Medium supported it for ages. Tools like Matomo came with support for it by default. Firefox has implemented the replacement, Global Privacy Control. It has the exact same problems and isn't respected either, except even fewer websites have implementations that respect GPC. It's not a real solution to the normalised cyberstalking websites practice today, but it's also not entirely useless.
  - shortsunblack 2y ago
    GPC does not meet GDPR's requirements and cannot be used for gaining consent under GDPR. There already has been a browser signal in design that meets GDPR requirements for consent, but it was ignored. The industry instead rallied behind GPC. See: https://www.dataprotectioncontrol.org/ https://www.dataprotectioncontrol.org/
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - ddtaylor 2y ago
    Remove GPC too.
  - Sephr 2y ago
    GPC is also a narrower signal implying a smaller subset of privacy choices.
ajsnigrutin 2y ago
Browsers need a "keep my cookies" button next to the url bar, separate cookie jar per domain, and then by default, delete all the cookies when you close the window. No EU cookie prompts would be needed, no "this feature does not work without third party cookies, no DNT, no nothing... silently accept all the cookies, and then delete them. (and other persistent storage too). Want to stay logged in? Press the "keep the cookies for this domain" button by the url bar, and a separate cookie jar will be made just for example.org and persist there.
- timbit42 2y ago
  So make the Cookie Autodelete add-on into a browser feature.
  - mixmastamyk 2y ago
    Already a checkbox in prefs. I use it.
  - ajsnigrutin 2y ago
    I already have my cookies sorted out... i'm talking about defaults and the EU cookie law, the DNT, etc. Instead of accepting cookies (eu cookie law prompts) on every goddamn site, this should be handled by the browser directly.
- daveoc64 2y ago
  This is a common misconception with the "EU cookie prompts". The EU does not require the use of "cookie prompts". User consent is required to process a user's data for certain purposes+. That may involve the use of a cookie, or it may not. Whatever technological methods you use to process the user's data, and regardless of whether it happens on the client or server, you must ask for consent. Having a system where cookies are not remembered between sessions would be no use, as the user's consent would still be needed while those cookies were set. +Not everything needs consent, but things like tracking for advertising or analytics typically does. Even if you do it via IP address or local storage, you need to ask for consent - nothing to do with cookies.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
shakna 2y ago
Deprecated in 2018. Removed in 2024. That doesn't seem like a timeline to take anybody by surprise, for a thing that was used to do the exact opposite of its purpose.
internet_points 2y ago
Next thing you know Thunderbird will remove the "Do Not Spam" feature
shortsunblack 2y ago
The relevant context is that Mozilla is now an adtech company. Reuter's coverage over noyb complaint over illegal "PET" adtech: https://www.reuters.com/technology/mozilla-hit-with-privacy-complaint-over-firefox-user-tracking-2024-09-25/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/mozilla-hit-with-privacy-... Mozilla buying out an adtech company: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-the-bar-for-privacy-preserving-digital-advertising/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-t... Mozilla has also been lending its credibility and whitewashing Meta's "PET" measuring standards at W3C. More on this, from Mozilla: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/privacy-preserving-attribution-for-advertising/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/privacy-preserving-attri...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
arp242 2y ago
So GPC is basically the same as DNT, but according to [1], "GPC improves on DNT in several ways:" - Legal backing: Unlike DNT, GPC is supported by more laws, like the CCPA, which requires businesses to honor these signals. - Targeted approach: While DNT broadly addressed tracking, GPC focuses specifically on stopping data from being sold or shared, making it more relevant to today’s privacy needs. - Better adoption potential: GPC was created with input from regulators, privacy advocates, and industry leaders, to align it with existing laws and address previous gaps in functionality. But essentially, it's more or less the same. So it seems it's less "Firefox removes DNT" and more "Firefox deprecates earlier ineffective version of GPC". [1]: https://www.cookiebot.com/en/global-privacy-control/ https://www.cookiebot.com/en/global-privacy-control/
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  > GPC is supported by more laws, like the CCPA, which requires businesses to honor these signals Because it's off by default? It's the exact same thing, a header with a preset value. > While DNT broadly addressed tracking, GPC focuses specifically on stopping data from being sold or shared, making it more relevant to today’s privacy needs. My needs are not being tracked. The tracking is what comes before the selling. I don't want to opt out of selling, I want to opt out of tracking. > Better adoption potential: GPC was created with input from regulators, privacy advocates, and industry leaders, to align it with existing laws and address previous gaps in functionality. "Gaps in functionality"? The difference between GPC and DNT is that DNT sends "DNT: 1" and GPC sends "Sec-GPC: 1". Companies that never respected DNT aren't going to respect GPC. The only difference here is that IE doesn't have GPC enabled by default, but it does have DNT enabled by default.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    > Companies that never respected DNT aren't going to respect GPC. It depends. While I agree that GPC is technically just a more complicated form of DNT, the major difference is that DNT is 100% optional for websites to honor, which is why they don't, but GPC becomes mandatory for nations that have reasonable laws around tracking. Companies operating in those nations will honor it because there are legal penalties if they don't.
n144q 2y ago
About time. It has never achieved anything meaningful for protecting your privacy, if not helping the opposite by providing yet another signal to help uniquely identify a user and improve tracking. Although, anti-tracking in general is basically fighting a losing battle. Go to https://amiunique.org/ https://amiunique.org/ and you'll see why. I use Firefox with all possible protection mechanics -- "strict" tracking protection mode, uBlock origin, yet I cannot escape first-party tracking. One striking example: These days browsers may expose how many cores your device's CPU has to websites. That alone could eliminate 80%-90% of users. Combined with user agent, IP, language etc you are pretty much uniquely identified. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/hardwareConcurrency https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/h...
- barnabee 2y ago
  What I'd love to see is a default JavaScript environment (ideally across all browsers, but at least in FF) that is sufficiently basic as to be identical for all users with an icon appearing in the address bar when a site wishes to use advanced features that might enable tracking, so that these can be enabled on a case-by-case basis. Low script rather than no script, if you will.
- autoexec 2y ago
  > Although, anti-tracking in general is basically fighting a losing battle. Go to https://amiunique.org/ https://amiunique.org/ and you'll see why. The goal shouldn't be to appear non-unique. There are too many little things that will out you. Even if you somehow account for every single one of them today your next browser update could enable more and you can't trust that amiunique.org is looking at every identifying data point either. It's an arms race you're going to lose. What you want is to be differently unique for each website you visit. Even better if you have JS disabled by default and sites can't collect 90% of the data points your browser exposes at all. The best protection you could get would be to change up IP addresses via VPN and randomize your user-agent and other tells.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    > Even better if you have JS disabled by default and sites can't collect 90% of the data points your browser exposes at all. There's two gigantic issues with that: 1. Most websites won't work 2. Most people like websites to work, and so they have JS turned on. If you don't, you'll stick out like a sore thumb.
registeredcorn 2y ago
> However, as we approach 2025, with growing concerns about online privacy and data protection, Mozilla believes that DNT is no longer an effective privacy measure. Many websites ignore the DNT signal. Therefore, Mozilla has removed the DNT signal from Firefox version 135. This is spurious reasoning. "Many" is neither a percentage, or a basis for justification. Many people ignore speed limits - so what? >The company recommends using the Global Privacy Control setting as an alternative to prevent websites from tracking user data. >If you wish to ask websites to respect your privacy, [...] [t]his option is built on top of the Global Privacy Control (GPC). GPC is respected by increasing numbers of sites and enforced with legislation in some regions. Increasing numbers? But then that means that "'Many' websites ignore it", right? This reeks of early movements towards monetization of their shrinking userbase. It's genuinely disappointing. I used to like Firefox, and continue to use Thunderbird today. Good luck to the stragglers who decide to stick it out.
- n144q 2y ago
  Websites don't just "ignore" DNT, they actively use DNT to improve tracking. From a product perspective, this is an additional option in their settings page that is confusing and marginally useless. I work on creating user facing products as my job, and I 100% support this decision. I'll be honest: nobody is going to stop Firefox because of this, because it does not affect their life in any way or manner.
  - registeredcorn 2y ago
    Per oytis: "An obvious solution would be to turn it on by default" I do agree with your point on people continuing to use Firefox in spite of this. Most people are not invested in the details, or don't care about security/privacy, or can't be bothered to figure out which other browser option is best for their use case. My annoyance is more so on their behalf - that average people will probably be unaware of what security feature is being taken away from them. Do they care? Probably not. Will it change much for them? No. It irks me, however, that they no longer even have the option.
    - 2y ago
karaterobot 2y ago
Browsers have such a low switching cost. I like Firefox because it has seemed aligned with me against web advertisements. Not even privacy, per se, but web advertisements specifically. If it stopped being that, I might as well go back to Chrome, which works a lot better on a lot of websites. Not saying Firefox is evil now, just saying there is nothing keeping me around if I get the sense that it's changing in ways I don't prefer.
- gkoberger 2y ago
  Sunsetting this feature doesn't indicate Firefox has changed their opinions. DNT was never effective, and provided a false sense of security. No tracking company respected it, so it just became a meaningless setting.
  - karaterobot 2y ago
    Not saying Firefox is evil now, just saying there is nothing keeping me around if I get the sense that it's changing in ways I don't prefer.
- ksec 2y ago
  > which works a lot better on a lot of websites Since you are said a lot of websites do you have any examples? I have actually encounter more problems with Safari than Firefox.
dylan604 2y ago
I think the browser should behave differently when Do Not Track is enabled. Instead of whatever it does now, it should be updated so that when the user selects it the browser automatically installs uBO, privacy badger, etc. After all, that's what the user really needs to have the browser respect their wishes of not being tracked. So rather than eliminate it with another thing that is nothing more than a name changes, it should just become useful
- bguebert 2y ago
  I always though something like ublock origin should be built in with a standard format for the block list rules so people could just use different rules lists if they wanted to. It would be nice to have a feature for enable/disable javascript per site also.
  - mixmastamyk 2y ago
    Believe it does. Also noscript exists.
    - ReadCarlBarks 2y ago
      NoScript is a relic of the past and redundant with uBlock Origin - https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium-mode https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...
      - mixmastamyk 2y ago
        Not at all. I find noscript much easier to understand. I only use UBO for "set and forget" installations, as configuring it is a nightmare.
- sedatk 2y ago
  That already exists in forms of privacy protection settings on browsers. DNT was a very specific feature. Privacy protections were not removed, DNT was removed.
ncphil 2y ago
"Do Not Track" was a good standard, but on the today's global Internet, unenforceable without serious push back against non-compliant sites from either government regulators and/or consumers. In other words, privacy theater that misled users into thinking it made them safer. It has also been suggested that DNT signals are used by some advertisers in profiling users. But removing DNT suspiciously seems like a capitulation, and will short-circuit any existing efforts to use it to protect consumer privacy. Maskawanian is right, this was inevitable once Mozilla decided to become an ad company (as was their adding the deceptively named Privacy-Preserving Ad Attribution feature earlier this year). I think it's time for people concerned about privacy to consider alternatives to Mozilla.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
"Do not track" can ironically be used for fingerprinting.
- akimbostrawman 2y ago
  everything can
Sephr 2y ago
Removing this feature harms user agency. This will result in Firefox users having to deal with more annoying consent prompts. Transcend Consent Management's default configuration opts users out of every unessential tracking purpose (and suppresses automatic consent prompts) whenever DNT is enabled, but only opts users out of "Sale/sharing of info" when only GPC is enabled. Removing this centralized privacy signal means some users cannot express full opt outs to Transcend Consent Management by default without having to interact with annoying banners. I believe this change was steamrolled without taking in proper consideration and feedback from the web community. Mozilla made this change so fast that barely anyone noticed the issue before it got closed[1]. To add insult to injury, they've configured their Bugzilla to disallow further comments from non-Mozilla employees after issues are closed. I shared similar feedback with the Chrome team in 2023 when they were proposing to remove DNT[2]. They considered my feedback and currently DNT is still in Chrome, with its removal indefinitely postponed. 1. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1928087 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1928087 2. https://issues.chromium.org/issues/41440843#comment12 https://issues.chromium.org/issues/41440843#comment12
- iLoveOncall 2y ago
  > Removing this feature harms user agency It doesn't, because nobody respects it. It is actually harmful to have a feature that misrepresents its efficiency to users, especially when it comes to privacy and security. Nobody should ever feel that they will not be tracked because they enabled do-not-track, because it's wrong. Removing it is the right thing to do because of this.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - shaky-carrousel 2y ago
    That nobody respects is is a false statement. Some do. Also that header permits users to signal sites if they want or not to be tracked, avoiding cookie popups. Edit: I just saw that Firefox supports GPC, which seems a better alternative to DNT.
dev1ycan 2y ago
Ilost care about Mozilla long time ago, too many issues with them, I'm waiting to see if ladybird will become viable, hopefully it will in a few years
gkoberger 2y ago
I was at Mozilla when this was implemented. It was completely optional for websites to support this. A few did at first. A lot of people internally wanted it to be on-by-default, but the argument was that if it was, nobody would respect it – after all, what tracking platform would willingly only track the 0.1% of people who went into the settings to enable it? (Internet Explorer did eventually enable it by default, which got them good press but ultimately killed the feature since everyone stopped respecting it.) Overall, I'm happy to see this sunsetted. I don't think it actually did anything – in fact, I think it implies that it did way more than it did, so it was just a faux feeling of security. (All that being said, I would love if the cookie modals on each site became browser-level, but I'm sure there's many reasons that hasn't happened yet. And I suspect a bit reason starts with a G and ends with an Oogle.)
- ganzuul 2y ago
  There are lots of entities out there that assume consent.
  - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
    Isn't this the entire point of browsewrapped TOS "agreements"? There's a reason why specifically tracking via cookies had to be singled out by regulation to work at all (putting aside how well or not well this actually works).
    - bluGill 2y ago
      Since you don't have a realistic alternative should those hold up?
    - ganzuul 2y ago
      I doubt it? Stuff only works because we can't punch each other over the internet.
      - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
        That's a grim view of humanity, I think. The internet is arguably the most collaborative project in the history of mankind especially outside of extractive and invasive motives. Hopefully not all of us will die before seeing serious legislation protecting that kind of social investment.
throw4847285 2y ago
Ask app not to track! Ask app not to track! iykyk
- throw4847285 2y ago
  This was very obnoxious. What I meant to say was, there's a great Jon Early comedy bit about this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEYebvED1do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEYebvED1do
ziddoap 2y ago
The "Do Not Track" signal was more useful as an additional fingerprinting signal than it was at stopping tracking. Perhaps now we can get something more robust in the works.
hkt 2y ago
My recommendations: https://consentomatic.au.dk/ https://consentomatic.au.dk/ - automagically denies consent to GDPR banners https://ublockorigin.com/ https://ublockorigin.com/ - the one and only https://decentraleyes.org/ https://decentraleyes.org/ - skip tracking CDNs
sebazzz 2y ago
DNT was dead the moment some web browsers enabled it by default. No regular user will uncheck this setting, buried in a settings screen.
- kube-system 2y ago
  DNT was dead even when web browsers didn't enabled it by default. No regular user did check that setting, buried in a settings screen.
john61 2y ago
DNT is legally effective. A German court ruled: "According to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the right to object to the processing of personal data can also be exercised using automated procedures. A DNT signal represents an effective contradiction." https://cybernews.com/tech/germany-court-bans-linkedin-from-ignoring-browser-do-not-track/ https://cybernews.com/tech/germany-court-bans-linkedin-from-...
- kuschku 2y ago
  Typical "only america counts" attitude from Mozilla here tbh. They support GPC because it has legal backing by the california attorney general, but remove DNT because it's only supported by German courts?
openplatypus 2y ago
If you think you can/could ignore DNT, think again: https://wideangle.co/blog/do-not-track-gdpr-opt-out https://wideangle.co/blog/do-not-track-gdpr-opt-out While highly uncommon, there were legal grounds to treat it as strong opt-out signal.
atoav 2y ago
I think they should leave it in and the EU should legally make it an abuse to ignore it. Then we would also not need these good damn cookie banners.
- pptr 2y ago
  Ignoring it means you need to get explicit consent, which is what the websites are already doing.
  - atoav 2y ago
    Legally they are required as of now to gather informed consent that is given freely. Contrary to popular believe the EU has somewhat defined what that means (just read the law) and surprise: The way many datahogs wish it to be, isn't how the law was written. E.g. if you trick or extort users into agreeing, consent was neither given informed nor freely. In front of the law it is as if you haven't asked for consent at all and GDPR fines can be up to 4% of the global turnover of the previous fiscal year. But yeah.
cymon 2y ago
Probably a stupid question, but why is it not possible for a browser to ignore cookies from a site where the user chose 'Do Not Track' then that's it, they can't have cookies, can't log in e.t.c alternatively a few white labeled cookies can be agreed upon as a standard e.g just to support maintaining logged in sessions
- meiraleal 2y ago
  Google won't let Mozilla ever do that
throwaway984393 2y ago
[dead]
1oooqooq 2y ago
now only if firefox enabled real privacy things already available as addons for decades. start with uBlockOrigin and i-don't-care-about-cookies and you have the world most privacy respecting browser with zero downside.
meiraleal 2y ago
Sad to see Mozilla rotting like this. When was the last time people cheered for some Firefox change?
aucisson_masque 2y ago
The web is the equivalent of a far west, for the better and the worst. You can't expect people to willingly support a feature that diminish their revenue, it was doomed from the start. I think everyone with a brain cell could predict that, in my opinion mozilla would have better allocated resources on feature that are client side, not server side. For instance the containerization of cookies, the support of mv2, integrating ublock origin by default, and so on.
- pessimizer 2y ago
  [flagged]
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
This is one of those changes that is so small anyone could reverse it when compiling Firefox themselves. At the same time I would rather add the DNT HTTP header via a localhost-bound forward proxy (one line in a configuration file) than edit and recompile the Firefox source code. I believe the term for this is "convenience". As Mozilla likes to tell everyone, Firefox is open source. Wonderful. But making it easy for more users to edit the source code and compile it is not on their list of important things to do. Removing or adding an HTTP header is a trivial change anyone can make in the source code of any browser. Perhaps all the Firefox forks will keep the DNT header. They certainly could if they wanted to. NB. I am not suggesting whether anyone should or should not use DNT. I have no comment about DNT. Rather, I am making a point about the lack of user control over inclusion or exclusion of (open source) browser "features", specifically HTTP headers.
amelius 2y ago
This is what the EU should have enforced instead of cookie popups.
- yencabulator 2y ago
  EU didn't enforce cookie popups; companies choose to implement them as a form of malicious compliance.
jmward01 2y ago
What I want is to have a 'pay me for ads' option that links payment info so that I get $ for viewing the ads if enabled or doesn't show the ads if not enabled or the ad service isn't willing to pay up. At least this way I would get a cut of the money they are making on me. Expanding on this idea you could even set your rates 'cross-site tracking is XX, video is YY, sound is 1$/second, etc etc'
dpifke 2y ago
If I understand correctly, DNT is being deprecated in favor of a new proposal, "Global Privacy Control": https://w3c.github.io/gpc/ https://w3c.github.io/gpc/ So instead of sending the header: DNT: 1 Firefox will now optionally (via a different setting than was used for DNT) send: Sec-GPC: 1 I'm unclear on why anyone thinks this is a useful change. As a website owner who previously implemented anonymization code activated in the presence of a DNT header, I guess I can add code to also look for Sec-GPC, but this feels like churn for the sake of churn. It also feels ridiculous that Mozilla can't just send both headers if the same browser preference is checked, rather than requiring websites to look for both. I get that they want stronger promises around "Sec-GPC" than around "DNT", but the latter is a subset of the former, so why not update the client-side checkbox description, and then send both?
mattxxx 2y ago
Agree with this choice. DNT didn't work, and now it's just a signal that could _help_ organizations track you.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dathinab 2y ago
Is Mozilla killing it because German courts ruled that it's a binding GDPR opt out and as such you can't harass people with DNT flat with opaque often not fully legal consent dialogs? Like it might make all their tries of cookie/tracking alternatives meaningless.
hedora 2y ago
I never understood why the courts didn’t uphold “do not track”. One of the basic tenants of contract law is “last writer wins”. If I say “here’s a contract”, and then you make amendments to it, sign it, and then I sign it, the amendments are part of the contract. It is legally obvious that “Do Not Track” should be incorporated into the user agreement for the web site.
jessyco 2y ago
My feelings initially was frustration but after some time I lean more towards the general comments here, where its better to remove something that miss-represented the "action" of the request. I have never noticed any kind of acknowledgement from any website I've visited in years with Firefox and this option on. I want to do something to help signal "No thank you, I don't want this" messaging so the "harms user agency" feels relevant but if its not respected on the other end whats the point.
zxcvbnm69 2y ago
[dead]
ErigmolCt 2y ago
Switching to Global Privacy Control (GPC) makes sense... Considering that it backed by legislation in some regions, giving it more teeth than DNT ever had. But it’s also a reminder that technical solutions alone don’t solve privacy issues
mancerayder 2y ago
I gave up on Firefox as I fought media autoplay some years ago, and have been using Brave. Any other Brave users? Brave definitely causes issues on sites and shields have to be turned off. And, it's painful if not impossible to whitelist a whole domain, it's by host, which is completely annoying. But Brave does its job well. Any other Brave users? How do you compare Firefox+ ublock origin on mobile? I'm an android user FWIW

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

josefritzishere 2y ago

[flagged]

hoseja 2y ago

Was it anything but another bit for identification?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

hkt 2y ago

I suppose it follows that they'd remove a feature that virtually nobody respects.

ezfe 2y ago

The feature was being used to track people because of how low usage was

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
oytis 2y ago
An obvious solution would be to turn it on by default
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  That's what IE 10 did. It led all the major advertisers to make public statements that they were going to ignore the header as a form of protest.
  - kjrfghslkdjfl 2y ago
    [dead]
  - registeredcorn 2y ago
    Sounds good to me. When (major advertiser/website detected): Prompt user, "Warning: (Advertiser/website) insists on tracking you, and have made public statements affirming this position. Your privacy is not enforceable on this website."
    - tehjoker 2y ago
      more like class action or regulatory step in. in theory market transactions are based on mutual consent. if consent isn't respected, then that's a problem.
      - registeredcorn 2y ago
        I actually ended up expanding on this a bit in a different comment thread, if you're interested. :) [1] It's a tough position to be in because the thing that really gets heads turning is regulation, licensing, and fines, but...when it comes to website design (assuming we're not talking about illicit material) I get queasy at the idea of (the/any) government saying, "You're not running your website the right way! Pay us money!" Perhaps the few exceptions being something like: PII storage, or payment processing. I dread the idea of anyone saying you have to, say, use a specific font type or whatever, you know? I don't want to put that burden on website owners, or complicate my own life. I'd rather inform the end user, point out the biggest offenders, and leave them be. "Detect, inform, and move on." Big scary message[2] then leave it to the user to decide what they want to do. "Oh, they're going to track me? Let me look up that VPN-thingy I keep hearing my nephew talk about." [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=registeredcorn#42380874 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=registeredcorn#42380... [2] https://i.imgur.com/W885J9X.png https://i.imgur.com/W885J9X.png
        tehjoker 2y ago
        I don't think there's much support for specifying a specific font. I do think there is support for making companies do things that don't exploit users.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  This was used as an excuse by sites and advertisers to not support it actually. Because some browsers did that. That wouldn't fly in the EU though because tracking is supposed to be opt in so enabling by default is fine.
- dbbk 2y ago
  That's exactly what killed it. Everyone started ignoring it once Edge defaulted it to on.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    But without it defaulting to "on", it would have died anyway. That's why the entire effort was doomed from the very start. The only way that anything like this can possibly succeed is through legislation.

Maskawanian 2y ago

[flagged]

gruez 2y ago
>they became an ad company ???
- mossTechnician 2y ago
  Maybe this is a reference to: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/advertising/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/advertising/
- perihelions 2y ago
  - "...But, for right now on the internet of today, a big part of the answer is online advertising. We started engaging in this space because the way the industry works today is fundamentally broken. It doesn’t put people first, it’s not privacy-respecting, and it’s increasingly anti-competitive. There have to be better options. Mozilla can play a key role in creating these better options not just by advocating for them, but also by actually building them..." https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/digital-advertising-privacy/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/digital-advertising-priv... - "...We’ve been collaborating with Meta on this, because any successful mechanism will need to be actually useful to advertisers, and designing something that Mozilla and Meta are simultaneously happy with is a good indicator we’ve hit the mark..." https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1e43w7v/a_word_about_private_attribution_in_firefox/ https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1e43w7v/a_word_abo... Etc. (You have to read these things *carefully*, because, the way Mozilla corpos write press, they obfuscate words to the point you can barely make out the sense from the noise).
- ddtaylor 2y ago
  Mozilla changed their goals over the last 5 years pretty drastically in an effort to chase revenue. It's a failing strategy assuming you want go remain a privacy focused organization.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

lambdadelirium 2y ago

Well it never worked, nothing of value was lost. Although, a little concerning in the light of many Mozilla's recent recruitment decisions and especially AI shilling focus

Semaphor 2y ago
IIRC geizhals.eu (price comparison site) respects it. They are probably the only ones, though :D

Jleagle 2y ago

As a web developer i don't think i have ever supported this feature, but only because i never remembered to. It's a pretty easy feature to add, but unless browsers can force it, you're better off with uBLock.

fein 2y ago
No one (corporate) supports it unless it comes enabled by default with whatever compliance service/ plugin used on their sites. The best combo I've found so far is Waterfox + uBO. I'm sure there are others, but this works well if you don't want to use a chromium based browser.

LinuxBender 2y ago

In my unpopular opinion it was a silly cart before the horse idea to begin with. I do not believe I need to be a lawyer to suggest there would first need to be a set of laws with some serious consequences if a company does not respect the header and can not prove it has respected the header when a court, legal team or the individual request proof. And that is only useful if the company is in a country that must respect such laws. Each country would need their own corresponding laws. And of course the devious companies would move their headquarters to some island nation. By consequences I mean a percentage of their revenue vs profit which can be waved away by accountants is seized, donated to people affected by shady companies and all the leaders of the company must be marched through cities by shame nuns whilst citizens are permitted to throw rotten food and excrement at them. Anything short of this would just be the cost of doing business.

elashri 2y ago

I understand that many people here have a bad taste of Mozilla's recent actions in many aspects. But the reality here is that this is at worst removing something that almost nobody respected. It was based on honor system and even in Switzerland they do have random inspections for honor system. Browsers never had any enforcement of this feature. And ironically it was used as additional data point of tracking privacy aware people who went out of the way to enable it.

jeroenhd 2y ago
Medium supported it for ages. Tools like Matomo came with support for it by default. Firefox has implemented the replacement, Global Privacy Control. It has the exact same problems and isn't respected either, except even fewer websites have implementations that respect GPC. It's not a real solution to the normalised cyberstalking websites practice today, but it's also not entirely useless.
- shortsunblack 2y ago
  GPC does not meet GDPR's requirements and cannot be used for gaining consent under GDPR. There already has been a browser signal in design that meets GDPR requirements for consent, but it was ignored. The industry instead rallied behind GPC. See: https://www.dataprotectioncontrol.org/ https://www.dataprotectioncontrol.org/
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ddtaylor 2y ago
  Remove GPC too.
- Sephr 2y ago
  GPC is also a narrower signal implying a smaller subset of privacy choices.

ajsnigrutin 2y ago

Browsers need a "keep my cookies" button next to the url bar, separate cookie jar per domain, and then by default, delete all the cookies when you close the window. No EU cookie prompts would be needed, no "this feature does not work without third party cookies, no DNT, no nothing... silently accept all the cookies, and then delete them. (and other persistent storage too). Want to stay logged in? Press the "keep the cookies for this domain" button by the url bar, and a separate cookie jar will be made just for example.org and persist there.

timbit42 2y ago
So make the Cookie Autodelete add-on into a browser feature.
- mixmastamyk 2y ago
  Already a checkbox in prefs. I use it.
- ajsnigrutin 2y ago
  I already have my cookies sorted out... i'm talking about defaults and the EU cookie law, the DNT, etc. Instead of accepting cookies (eu cookie law prompts) on every goddamn site, this should be handled by the browser directly.
daveoc64 2y ago
This is a common misconception with the "EU cookie prompts". The EU does not require the use of "cookie prompts". User consent is required to process a user's data for certain purposes+. That may involve the use of a cookie, or it may not. Whatever technological methods you use to process the user's data, and regardless of whether it happens on the client or server, you must ask for consent. Having a system where cookies are not remembered between sessions would be no use, as the user's consent would still be needed while those cookies were set. +Not everything needs consent, but things like tracking for advertising or analytics typically does. Even if you do it via IP address or local storage, you need to ask for consent - nothing to do with cookies.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

shakna 2y ago

Deprecated in 2018. Removed in 2024. That doesn't seem like a timeline to take anybody by surprise, for a thing that was used to do the exact opposite of its purpose.

internet_points 2y ago

Next thing you know Thunderbird will remove the "Do Not Spam" feature

shortsunblack 2y ago

The relevant context is that Mozilla is now an adtech company. Reuter's coverage over noyb complaint over illegal "PET" adtech: https://www.reuters.com/technology/mozilla-hit-with-privacy-complaint-over-firefox-user-tracking-2024-09-25/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/mozilla-hit-with-privacy-... Mozilla buying out an adtech company: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-the-bar-for-privacy-preserving-digital-advertising/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-t... Mozilla has also been lending its credibility and whitewashing Meta's "PET" measuring standards at W3C. More on this, from Mozilla: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/privacy-preserving-attribution-for-advertising/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/privacy-preserving-attri...

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

arp242 2y ago

So GPC is basically the same as DNT, but according to [1], "GPC improves on DNT in several ways:" - Legal backing: Unlike DNT, GPC is supported by more laws, like the CCPA, which requires businesses to honor these signals. - Targeted approach: While DNT broadly addressed tracking, GPC focuses specifically on stopping data from being sold or shared, making it more relevant to today’s privacy needs. - Better adoption potential: GPC was created with input from regulators, privacy advocates, and industry leaders, to align it with existing laws and address previous gaps in functionality. But essentially, it's more or less the same. So it seems it's less "Firefox removes DNT" and more "Firefox deprecates earlier ineffective version of GPC". [1]: https://www.cookiebot.com/en/global-privacy-control/ https://www.cookiebot.com/en/global-privacy-control/

jeroenhd 2y ago
> GPC is supported by more laws, like the CCPA, which requires businesses to honor these signals Because it's off by default? It's the exact same thing, a header with a preset value. > While DNT broadly addressed tracking, GPC focuses specifically on stopping data from being sold or shared, making it more relevant to today’s privacy needs. My needs are not being tracked. The tracking is what comes before the selling. I don't want to opt out of selling, I want to opt out of tracking. > Better adoption potential: GPC was created with input from regulators, privacy advocates, and industry leaders, to align it with existing laws and address previous gaps in functionality. "Gaps in functionality"? The difference between GPC and DNT is that DNT sends "DNT: 1" and GPC sends "Sec-GPC: 1". Companies that never respected DNT aren't going to respect GPC. The only difference here is that IE doesn't have GPC enabled by default, but it does have DNT enabled by default.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  > Companies that never respected DNT aren't going to respect GPC. It depends. While I agree that GPC is technically just a more complicated form of DNT, the major difference is that DNT is 100% optional for websites to honor, which is why they don't, but GPC becomes mandatory for nations that have reasonable laws around tracking. Companies operating in those nations will honor it because there are legal penalties if they don't.

n144q 2y ago

About time. It has never achieved anything meaningful for protecting your privacy, if not helping the opposite by providing yet another signal to help uniquely identify a user and improve tracking. Although, anti-tracking in general is basically fighting a losing battle. Go to https://amiunique.org/ https://amiunique.org/ and you'll see why. I use Firefox with all possible protection mechanics -- "strict" tracking protection mode, uBlock origin, yet I cannot escape first-party tracking. One striking example: These days browsers may expose how many cores your device's CPU has to websites. That alone could eliminate 80%-90% of users. Combined with user agent, IP, language etc you are pretty much uniquely identified. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/hardwareConcurrency https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/h...

barnabee 2y ago
What I'd love to see is a default JavaScript environment (ideally across all browsers, but at least in FF) that is sufficiently basic as to be identical for all users with an icon appearing in the address bar when a site wishes to use advanced features that might enable tracking, so that these can be enabled on a case-by-case basis. Low script rather than no script, if you will.
autoexec 2y ago
> Although, anti-tracking in general is basically fighting a losing battle. Go to https://amiunique.org/ https://amiunique.org/ and you'll see why. The goal shouldn't be to appear non-unique. There are too many little things that will out you. Even if you somehow account for every single one of them today your next browser update could enable more and you can't trust that amiunique.org is looking at every identifying data point either. It's an arms race you're going to lose. What you want is to be differently unique for each website you visit. Even better if you have JS disabled by default and sites can't collect 90% of the data points your browser exposes at all. The best protection you could get would be to change up IP addresses via VPN and randomize your user-agent and other tells.
- kube-system 2y ago
  > Even better if you have JS disabled by default and sites can't collect 90% of the data points your browser exposes at all. There's two gigantic issues with that: 1. Most websites won't work 2. Most people like websites to work, and so they have JS turned on. If you don't, you'll stick out like a sore thumb.

registeredcorn 2y ago

> However, as we approach 2025, with growing concerns about online privacy and data protection, Mozilla believes that DNT is no longer an effective privacy measure. Many websites ignore the DNT signal. Therefore, Mozilla has removed the DNT signal from Firefox version 135. This is spurious reasoning. "Many" is neither a percentage, or a basis for justification. Many people ignore speed limits - so what? >The company recommends using the Global Privacy Control setting as an alternative to prevent websites from tracking user data. >If you wish to ask websites to respect your privacy, [...] [t]his option is built on top of the Global Privacy Control (GPC). GPC is respected by increasing numbers of sites and enforced with legislation in some regions. Increasing numbers? But then that means that "'Many' websites ignore it", right? This reeks of early movements towards monetization of their shrinking userbase. It's genuinely disappointing. I used to like Firefox, and continue to use Thunderbird today. Good luck to the stragglers who decide to stick it out.

n144q 2y ago
Websites don't just "ignore" DNT, they actively use DNT to improve tracking. From a product perspective, this is an additional option in their settings page that is confusing and marginally useless. I work on creating user facing products as my job, and I 100% support this decision. I'll be honest: nobody is going to stop Firefox because of this, because it does not affect their life in any way or manner.
- registeredcorn 2y ago
  Per oytis: "An obvious solution would be to turn it on by default" I do agree with your point on people continuing to use Firefox in spite of this. Most people are not invested in the details, or don't care about security/privacy, or can't be bothered to figure out which other browser option is best for their use case. My annoyance is more so on their behalf - that average people will probably be unaware of what security feature is being taken away from them. Do they care? Probably not. Will it change much for them? No. It irks me, however, that they no longer even have the option.
  - 2y ago

karaterobot 2y ago

Browsers have such a low switching cost. I like Firefox because it has seemed aligned with me against web advertisements. Not even privacy, per se, but web advertisements specifically. If it stopped being that, I might as well go back to Chrome, which works a lot better on a lot of websites. Not saying Firefox is evil now, just saying there is nothing keeping me around if I get the sense that it's changing in ways I don't prefer.

gkoberger 2y ago
Sunsetting this feature doesn't indicate Firefox has changed their opinions. DNT was never effective, and provided a false sense of security. No tracking company respected it, so it just became a meaningless setting.
- karaterobot 2y ago
  Not saying Firefox is evil now, just saying there is nothing keeping me around if I get the sense that it's changing in ways I don't prefer.
ksec 2y ago
> which works a lot better on a lot of websites Since you are said a lot of websites do you have any examples? I have actually encounter more problems with Safari than Firefox.

dylan604 2y ago

I think the browser should behave differently when Do Not Track is enabled. Instead of whatever it does now, it should be updated so that when the user selects it the browser automatically installs uBO, privacy badger, etc. After all, that's what the user really needs to have the browser respect their wishes of not being tracked. So rather than eliminate it with another thing that is nothing more than a name changes, it should just become useful

bguebert 2y ago
I always though something like ublock origin should be built in with a standard format for the block list rules so people could just use different rules lists if they wanted to. It would be nice to have a feature for enable/disable javascript per site also.
- mixmastamyk 2y ago
  Believe it does. Also noscript exists.
  - ReadCarlBarks 2y ago
    NoScript is a relic of the past and redundant with uBlock Origin - https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium-mode https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...
    - mixmastamyk 2y ago
      Not at all. I find noscript much easier to understand. I only use UBO for "set and forget" installations, as configuring it is a nightmare.
sedatk 2y ago
That already exists in forms of privacy protection settings on browsers. DNT was a very specific feature. Privacy protections were not removed, DNT was removed.

ncphil 2y ago

"Do Not Track" was a good standard, but on the today's global Internet, unenforceable without serious push back against non-compliant sites from either government regulators and/or consumers. In other words, privacy theater that misled users into thinking it made them safer. It has also been suggested that DNT signals are used by some advertisers in profiling users. But removing DNT suspiciously seems like a capitulation, and will short-circuit any existing efforts to use it to protect consumer privacy. Maskawanian is right, this was inevitable once Mozilla decided to become an ad company (as was their adding the deceptively named Privacy-Preserving Ad Attribution feature earlier this year). I think it's time for people concerned about privacy to consider alternatives to Mozilla.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

"Do not track" can ironically be used for fingerprinting.

akimbostrawman 2y ago
everything can

Sephr 2y ago

Removing this feature harms user agency. This will result in Firefox users having to deal with more annoying consent prompts. Transcend Consent Management's default configuration opts users out of every unessential tracking purpose (and suppresses automatic consent prompts) whenever DNT is enabled, but only opts users out of "Sale/sharing of info" when only GPC is enabled. Removing this centralized privacy signal means some users cannot express full opt outs to Transcend Consent Management by default without having to interact with annoying banners. I believe this change was steamrolled without taking in proper consideration and feedback from the web community. Mozilla made this change so fast that barely anyone noticed the issue before it got closed[1]. To add insult to injury, they've configured their Bugzilla to disallow further comments from non-Mozilla employees after issues are closed. I shared similar feedback with the Chrome team in 2023 when they were proposing to remove DNT[2]. They considered my feedback and currently DNT is still in Chrome, with its removal indefinitely postponed. 1. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1928087 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1928087 2. https://issues.chromium.org/issues/41440843#comment12 https://issues.chromium.org/issues/41440843#comment12

iLoveOncall 2y ago
> Removing this feature harms user agency It doesn't, because nobody respects it. It is actually harmful to have a feature that misrepresents its efficiency to users, especially when it comes to privacy and security. Nobody should ever feel that they will not be tracked because they enabled do-not-track, because it's wrong. Removing it is the right thing to do because of this.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- shaky-carrousel 2y ago
  That nobody respects is is a false statement. Some do. Also that header permits users to signal sites if they want or not to be tracked, avoiding cookie popups. Edit: I just saw that Firefox supports GPC, which seems a better alternative to DNT.

dev1ycan 2y ago

Ilost care about Mozilla long time ago, too many issues with them, I'm waiting to see if ladybird will become viable, hopefully it will in a few years

gkoberger 2y ago

I was at Mozilla when this was implemented. It was completely optional for websites to support this. A few did at first. A lot of people internally wanted it to be on-by-default, but the argument was that if it was, nobody would respect it – after all, what tracking platform would willingly only track the 0.1% of people who went into the settings to enable it? (Internet Explorer did eventually enable it by default, which got them good press but ultimately killed the feature since everyone stopped respecting it.) Overall, I'm happy to see this sunsetted. I don't think it actually did anything – in fact, I think it implies that it did way more than it did, so it was just a faux feeling of security. (All that being said, I would love if the cookie modals on each site became browser-level, but I'm sure there's many reasons that hasn't happened yet. And I suspect a bit reason starts with a G and ends with an Oogle.)

ganzuul 2y ago
There are lots of entities out there that assume consent.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago
  Isn't this the entire point of browsewrapped TOS "agreements"? There's a reason why specifically tracking via cookies had to be singled out by regulation to work at all (putting aside how well or not well this actually works).
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Since you don't have a realistic alternative should those hold up?
  - ganzuul 2y ago
    I doubt it? Stuff only works because we can't punch each other over the internet.
    - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
      That's a grim view of humanity, I think. The internet is arguably the most collaborative project in the history of mankind especially outside of extractive and invasive motives. Hopefully not all of us will die before seeing serious legislation protecting that kind of social investment.

throw4847285 2y ago

Ask app not to track! Ask app not to track! iykyk

throw4847285 2y ago
This was very obnoxious. What I meant to say was, there's a great Jon Early comedy bit about this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEYebvED1do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEYebvED1do

ziddoap 2y ago

The "Do Not Track" signal was more useful as an additional fingerprinting signal than it was at stopping tracking. Perhaps now we can get something more robust in the works.

hkt 2y ago

My recommendations: https://consentomatic.au.dk/ https://consentomatic.au.dk/ - automagically denies consent to GDPR banners https://ublockorigin.com/ https://ublockorigin.com/ - the one and only https://decentraleyes.org/ https://decentraleyes.org/ - skip tracking CDNs

sebazzz 2y ago

DNT was dead the moment some web browsers enabled it by default. No regular user will uncheck this setting, buried in a settings screen.

kube-system 2y ago
DNT was dead even when web browsers didn't enabled it by default. No regular user did check that setting, buried in a settings screen.

john61 2y ago

DNT is legally effective. A German court ruled: "According to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the right to object to the processing of personal data can also be exercised using automated procedures. A DNT signal represents an effective contradiction." https://cybernews.com/tech/germany-court-bans-linkedin-from-ignoring-browser-do-not-track/ https://cybernews.com/tech/germany-court-bans-linkedin-from-...

kuschku 2y ago
Typical "only america counts" attitude from Mozilla here tbh. They support GPC because it has legal backing by the california attorney general, but remove DNT because it's only supported by German courts?

openplatypus 2y ago

If you think you can/could ignore DNT, think again: https://wideangle.co/blog/do-not-track-gdpr-opt-out https://wideangle.co/blog/do-not-track-gdpr-opt-out While highly uncommon, there were legal grounds to treat it as strong opt-out signal.

atoav 2y ago

I think they should leave it in and the EU should legally make it an abuse to ignore it. Then we would also not need these good damn cookie banners.

pptr 2y ago
Ignoring it means you need to get explicit consent, which is what the websites are already doing.
- atoav 2y ago
  Legally they are required as of now to gather informed consent that is given freely. Contrary to popular believe the EU has somewhat defined what that means (just read the law) and surprise: The way many datahogs wish it to be, isn't how the law was written. E.g. if you trick or extort users into agreeing, consent was neither given informed nor freely. In front of the law it is as if you haven't asked for consent at all and GDPR fines can be up to 4% of the global turnover of the previous fiscal year. But yeah.

cymon 2y ago

Probably a stupid question, but why is it not possible for a browser to ignore cookies from a site where the user chose 'Do Not Track' then that's it, they can't have cookies, can't log in e.t.c alternatively a few white labeled cookies can be agreed upon as a standard e.g just to support maintaining logged in sessions

meiraleal 2y ago
Google won't let Mozilla ever do that

throwaway984393 2y ago

[dead]

1oooqooq 2y ago

now only if firefox enabled real privacy things already available as addons for decades. start with uBlockOrigin and i-don't-care-about-cookies and you have the world most privacy respecting browser with zero downside.

meiraleal 2y ago

Sad to see Mozilla rotting like this. When was the last time people cheered for some Firefox change?

aucisson_masque 2y ago

The web is the equivalent of a far west, for the better and the worst. You can't expect people to willingly support a feature that diminish their revenue, it was doomed from the start. I think everyone with a brain cell could predict that, in my opinion mozilla would have better allocated resources on feature that are client side, not server side. For instance the containerization of cookies, the support of mv2, integrating ublock origin by default, and so on.

pessimizer 2y ago
[flagged]

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

This is one of those changes that is so small anyone could reverse it when compiling Firefox themselves. At the same time I would rather add the DNT HTTP header via a localhost-bound forward proxy (one line in a configuration file) than edit and recompile the Firefox source code. I believe the term for this is "convenience". As Mozilla likes to tell everyone, Firefox is open source. Wonderful. But making it easy for more users to edit the source code and compile it is not on their list of important things to do. Removing or adding an HTTP header is a trivial change anyone can make in the source code of any browser. Perhaps all the Firefox forks will keep the DNT header. They certainly could if they wanted to. NB. I am not suggesting whether anyone should or should not use DNT. I have no comment about DNT. Rather, I am making a point about the lack of user control over inclusion or exclusion of (open source) browser "features", specifically HTTP headers.

amelius 2y ago

This is what the EU should have enforced instead of cookie popups.

yencabulator 2y ago
EU didn't enforce cookie popups; companies choose to implement them as a form of malicious compliance.

jmward01 2y ago

What I want is to have a 'pay me for ads' option that links payment info so that I get $ for viewing the ads if enabled or doesn't show the ads if not enabled or the ad service isn't willing to pay up. At least this way I would get a cut of the money they are making on me. Expanding on this idea you could even set your rates 'cross-site tracking is XX, video is YY, sound is 1$/second, etc etc'

dpifke 2y ago

If I understand correctly, DNT is being deprecated in favor of a new proposal, "Global Privacy Control": https://w3c.github.io/gpc/ https://w3c.github.io/gpc/ So instead of sending the header: DNT: 1 Firefox will now optionally (via a different setting than was used for DNT) send: Sec-GPC: 1 I'm unclear on why anyone thinks this is a useful change. As a website owner who previously implemented anonymization code activated in the presence of a DNT header, I guess I can add code to also look for Sec-GPC, but this feels like churn for the sake of churn. It also feels ridiculous that Mozilla can't just send both headers if the same browser preference is checked, rather than requiring websites to look for both. I get that they want stronger promises around "Sec-GPC" than around "DNT", but the latter is a subset of the former, so why not update the client-side checkbox description, and then send both?

mattxxx 2y ago

Agree with this choice. DNT didn't work, and now it's just a signal that could _help_ organizations track you.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

dathinab 2y ago

Is Mozilla killing it because German courts ruled that it's a binding GDPR opt out and as such you can't harass people with DNT flat with opaque often not fully legal consent dialogs? Like it might make all their tries of cookie/tracking alternatives meaningless.

hedora 2y ago

I never understood why the courts didn’t uphold “do not track”. One of the basic tenants of contract law is “last writer wins”. If I say “here’s a contract”, and then you make amendments to it, sign it, and then I sign it, the amendments are part of the contract. It is legally obvious that “Do Not Track” should be incorporated into the user agreement for the web site.

jessyco 2y ago

My feelings initially was frustration but after some time I lean more towards the general comments here, where its better to remove something that miss-represented the "action" of the request. I have never noticed any kind of acknowledgement from any website I've visited in years with Firefox and this option on. I want to do something to help signal "No thank you, I don't want this" messaging so the "harms user agency" feels relevant but if its not respected on the other end whats the point.

zxcvbnm69 2y ago

[dead]

ErigmolCt 2y ago

Switching to Global Privacy Control (GPC) makes sense... Considering that it backed by legislation in some regions, giving it more teeth than DNT ever had. But it’s also a reminder that technical solutions alone don’t solve privacy issues

mancerayder 2y ago

I gave up on Firefox as I fought media autoplay some years ago, and have been using Brave. Any other Brave users? Brave definitely causes issues on sites and shields have to be turned off. And, it's painful if not impossible to whitelist a whole domain, it's by host, which is completely annoying. But Brave does its job well. Any other Brave users? How do you compare Firefox+ ublock origin on mobile? I'm an android user FWIW