4 ms·

I worked at one of the big adtech companies at the time. DNT was a carefully negotiated compromise between the ad industry (and by proxy, the sites that depende

by necubi 2y ago

I worked at one of the big adtech companies at the time. DNT was a carefully negotiated compromise between the ad industry (and by proxy, the sites that depended on it for their income), the browser vendors, and privacy advocates. We implemented DNT it in our edge infrastructure and were ready to deploy it. But then Microsoft broke the agreement by enabling it by default, as part of their war with Google (and after their own adtech ambitions ended in a 6 billion dollar write down on their acquisition of aQuantive). This killed it for everyone. The ad industry was never going to go for an opt-out version of DNT. It worked while only a minority that cared about it opted-in, but not when the (then) dominant web browser made that choice for all of its users. I fully understand why people hate tracking and targeted advertising (which has if anything gotten more invasive in the past decade), but at least at the time it was essential to the commercial web.

cpeterso 2y ago
In response, Apache added code to ignore the DNT header from Internet Explorer 10 browsers: https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/11/3314211/ie10-dnt-header-microsoft-apache-server-roy-fielding https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/11/3314211/ie10-dnt-header-m...
throwaway48476 2y ago
>at the time it was essential to the commercial web. The same could be said about slavery.
- hedora 2y ago
  The same can and is said about slavery and the financial viability of for-profit prisons: https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2024/11/california-election-result-proposition-6-fails/ https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2024/11/california... It doesn’t mean either statement is true though.
wkat4242 2y ago
These days an opt out solution is illegal in the EU and probably more jurisdictions will follow. So enabling by default is normal. What also would be legal is to offer the user a choice at the first startup.

by necubi 2y ago

cpeterso 2y ago

In response, Apache added code to ignore the DNT header from Internet Explorer 10 browsers: https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/11/3314211/ie10-dnt-header-microsoft-apache-server-roy-fielding https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/11/3314211/ie10-dnt-header-m...

throwaway48476 2y ago

>at the time it was essential to the commercial web. The same could be said about slavery.

hedora 2y ago
The same can and is said about slavery and the financial viability of for-profit prisons: https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2024/11/california-election-result-proposition-6-fails/ https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2024/11/california... It doesn’t mean either statement is true though.

wkat4242 2y ago

These days an opt out solution is illegal in the EU and probably more jurisdictions will follow. So enabling by default is normal. What also would be legal is to offer the user a choice at the first startup.