9 ms·

Microsoft sticks to its guns, keeps Do Not Track on by default in IE10

128 points by iProject 14y ago

esolyt 14y ago
Another pointless act which is simply for show. They want to be able market Internet Explorer by saying "The Browser That Does Not Track You". W3C clearly stated that this is considered an abuse of the DNT flag. As a result, thanks to Microsoft, the flag will start to be ignored completely.
- aggronn 14y ago
  Microsoft just can't win, can they?
  - Flimm 14y ago
    Sure they can. They should do what the W3C wants them to do. But for some reason, in this case, they don't. It makes me want to cry in frustration. DNT was on very shaky grounds to begin with, this just makes things worse.
  - qntm 14y ago
    This is the W3C's problem. "An ordinary user agent MUST NOT send a Tracking Preference signal without a user’s explicit consent"? How, exactly, are they intending to detect the user's explicit consent via the medium of HTTP headers? Why introduce a header which almost everybody in the world would probably want to use by default in every one of their HTTP requests and then say that you can't do that? What if I chose my browser specifically because it has DNT by default? Why introduce a header which doesn't do anything unless you really really want it to? The Explicit Consent Requirement is nonsensical. But then the DNT header itself is also nonsensical, because there's no legislation or tangible benefit to make request handlers respect it. Nobody should be tracked unless they've explicitly asked for it.
    - huggyface 14y ago
      Why introduce a header which almost everybody in the world would probably want to use by default in every one of their HTTP requests and then say that you can't do that? Ask everyone in the world if they "don't want to be tracked" and 100% will say yes. Ask everyone in the world if they "don't want to be tracked, understanding that is the economic foundation for almost all of the content they enjoy and thus they will either need to directly pay or go without" and somewhere approaching 0% will say yes. DNT is like commercial skippers on PVRs -- it's beneficial to most user's experience if a small enough group of users partake, but very detrimental if a large enough group uses it.
      - MatthewPhillips 14y ago
        In other words, if you word the question to what your position is, you can get most people to agree with you.
        huggyface 14y ago
        Is reality really a "position"? Personally I think sites should honor the DNT header by implementing a paywall for such users (really the same holds true for Adblock patrons). Ad-supported sites have an implicit two-way contract that you get content that you obviously want in return for providing advertiser value. If you don't want to provide advertiser value, partake of micropayments or some other mechanisms. As someone who would make use of those alternate payment mechanisms, I would welcome that.
        MatthewPhillips 14y ago
        > Is reality really a "position"? Both of the wordings you provided are positions. The first contained no context and the second is opinionated. > Personally I think sites should honor the DNT header by implementing a paywall for such users (really the same holds true for Adblock patrons). Personally I think tracking should be opt-in (by law) and that websites should have to adjust accordingly (whether that be putting up a pay-wall, finding an alternative revenue stream, making less revenue, or going out of business). > Ad-supported sites have an implicit two-way contract that you get content that you obviously want in return for providing advertiser value. Contracts which potentially do harm upon a person should never be implicit. Knowledge of cookies should not be a requirement for internet use. All contracts should be explicit, and agree upon by both parties.
- arscan 14y ago
  This doesn't have to do with marketing Internet Explorer as being more secure / privacy friendly. Its about using Internet Explorer's still substantial market share to expose the level of tracking that occurs w/out user knowledge. This hurts companies with an advertising business model (google) because it forces them to either explicitly & openly ignore IE's DNT setting, or to turn off tracking and significantly decrease the value of their advertising. From MS's perspective, that's a win-win.
  - huggyface 14y ago
    This doesn't have to do with marketing Internet Explorer as being more secure / privacy friendly Sure it does. When you're losing you need to differentiate, and Microsoft is choosing the "privacy first" route. It's fairly transparent, but it does get them a lot of press (almost all of the "they're really sticking to their principals" variety. At the same time I can't turn on my xbox without endless banners of ads). From MS's perspective, that's a win-win. And from a user's perspective it's a short-term win, long-term loss. I think that the optimal response to IE and DNT is that every ad-supported site puts up a paywall for IE DNT users. If users associated IE with such a negative web experience, its use would quickly crater into the ground.
    - arscan 14y ago
      Fair enough. It is a talking point that puts them on the "right" side of the privacy debate, though I find it hard to believe that people will move from Firefox/chrome because of this feature. Strategically its much more about breaking that which lets companies provide "free" web services, which is something that MS has trouble competing with. Its interesting that google put out chrome to force all browsers to have substantially better performance, thus expediting the migration from local applications to the "cloud". It seems like Microsoft finally decided to use their position to push something else that people care about (privacy) to slow down that migration. Its a long term loss for users if you believe that the loss of control & privacy is worth what you get for free services on the web. Not everybody does.
      - 14y ago
nathan_long 14y ago
Although I appreciate the idea of a Do Not Track header, isn't it a bit like a Do Not Steal sign? You don't use a sign; you use a lock. It seems like it would be more productive to focus on helping users not disclose their identity than helping them ask sites to pretend they don't see it.
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  Reminds me of "this is not a p3p policy".
- rickmb 14y ago
  You don't start with using a lock either. You start with the general consensus that stealing is socially unacceptable, and you make it illegal. Which is exactly what will inevitably happen with tracking unless tracking with permission becomes the exception rather than the rule. It might even take a few decades, but being tracked by corporations anywhere you go online is socially untenable in a free society. Microsoft understands this, although their enthusiasm is probably more inspired by the fact that a certain competitor that has a major part of its business model depending on it than by ethical considerations.
  - nathan_long 14y ago
    >> You don't start with using a lock either. You start with the general consensus that stealing is socially unacceptable, and you make it illegal. And then, as a sensible person, knowing that there exist people who don't care about laws, and knowing that law enforcement can't catch all criminals, you also use a lock. I would love to have laws and penalties for lawbreakers here, but this is the internet: it spans many legal jurisdictions. Law is not a panacea, and it's also much harder to get than a software patch.
4ad 14y ago
Ah, just a new incarnation of the evil bit[1]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit
- ConstantineXVI 14y ago
  Closer to a "Please don't be evil, kind sir" bit.
  - eli 14y ago
    Worse, it conveys the intent of "Please don't be evil and/or I never change my default settings"
Rudism 14y ago
I'm not entirely sure the value of the DNT header in the first place, even if Microsoft doesn't end up completely derailing it with this move... The kinds of advertisers who would voluntarily opt out of tracking behaviors in response to user preference probably aren't the kind of company who would do things with that information that you need to worry about. I can appreciate the intent behind it, and any move toward increased user privacy is a move in the right direction, but I don't think that leaving it in the hands of the advertisers is going to be a particularly effective approach. It may even be detrimental in the sense that a naive user would turn that option on and get a false sense of security.
- leejw00t354 14y ago
  Personally I question whether Microsoft's main reason for enabling DNT is to protect their user's privacy. If Microsoft can look like the good guys while sticking a knife in Google's back, preventing them tracking users and targeting ads, then they might as well go for it. IE on it's own won't do much damage but other browsers will be under pressure now to also add DNT, after all, they don't want their users to think they're privacy online is safer in IE's hands. If all browsers slowly make this move Google could be affected quite badly. And that is the logic I think Microsoft is using here.
  - pilif 14y ago
    The problem is that the spec of the DNT header says that the DNT header can only be sent in response to a conscious decision on the users part. By turning this on by default, the only thing MS accomplishes is that DNT will likely never have an effect for IE10 users. Which could also be exactly what they wanted: Get the good press for enabling the header by default while ensuring that they and everybody else will be able to track IE10 users normally, regardless of the setting being enabled or not.
    - smackfu 14y ago
      Of course, the spec was only changed after Microsoft announced it would be turned on by default.
Serplat 14y ago
The DNT header was likely to be ignored to begin with, but this just seals it. The only way that the DNT header even stood a chance was if it was only enabled by a select few individuals who are greatly concerned with their privacy. By defaulting it to 'on' for users who don't particularly care about their privacy, or understand any of the implications, they essentially guarantee that only a handful of sites will even consider honoring DNT. Assuming they actually stick with this, DNT has lost all of the little meaning it had to begin with.
- randomfool 14y ago
  Not quite- this is a direct shot at Google's advertising revenue. Google doesn't have the luxury of ignoring this. Microsoft isn't doing this to protect users against nefarious trackers, it's doing it to hurt Google's bottom line.
  - Serplat 14y ago
    I suppose that makes some sense. However, it doesn't change the fact that by enabling it by default, most other sites will likely end up just ignoring it, even if that isn't Microsoft's intent.
  - kenjackson 14y ago
    Why can't Google ignore this? Don't they make most of their revenue for targeted ads on the search page? Besides, what happened to Google siding with the user even when their revenue was on the line? Wasn't that their corporate position with China? Or is that only the corporate position when it conveniently aligns with other interests? This just seems like a no-brainer.
pilif 14y ago
With the recent amendment (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/default-do-not-track/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/default-do-not-trac...) to the spec of DNT that the header should only be honored if the user has actively chosen not to be tracked, I guess we've just created more data that is transmitted with every HTTP request and subsequently ignored on the server. As IE10 sending DNT isn't a response to a conscious user decision ("I accept the defaults" is not consciously deciding "I don't want to be tracked"), servers are basically free to ignore the header if the browser is IE10. This also means that IE10 will for all intents and purposes always be tracked regardless of what the setting is set to and whether the server in general honors DNT or not (currently I know of only twitter to do so). Way to go!
- eykanal 14y ago
  My thoughts exactly. Even more so, by "sticking to their guns", Microsoft is essentially creating user confusion over what Do Not Track actually means. It used to mean "advertisers, please do not track me". Now it will mean "advertisers, please do not track me, unless I'm using IE 10." Considering that users have a tough time differentiating between the browser and the internet, this isn't going to help anything.
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  Link to the spec? Seems strange that the default would be "track me".
  - smackfu 14y ago
    That's because this whole thing is a bit of a joke. The advertisers will only respect the setting if no one actually selects it.
    - Torn 14y ago
      Whatever happens the advertisers will lean towards tracking; there's just too much money in behavioural profiling not to.
- 14y ago
jwblackwell 14y ago
This is just a poor attempt to try and damage the biggest online advertising network and their number one competitor - Google. Realistically the DNT header will do nothing for user privacy. Just when you think MS is making progress with IE and the web they pull this stunt.
cooldeal 14y ago
Looks like Microsoft has added some language at setup to inform the user. From http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-sticks-to-default-do-not-track-settings-in-ie-10-7000002289/ http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-sticks-to-default-do-not-trac... >Customers will receive prominent notice that their selection of Express Settings turns DNT “on.” In addition, by using the Customize approach, users will be able to independently turn “on” and “off” a number of settings, including the setting for the DNT signal. A “Learn More” link with detailed information about each recommended setting will help customers decide whether to select Express Settings or Customize. A Privacy Statement link is also available on the screen. Windows 7 customers using IE10 will receive prominent notice that DNT is turned on in their new browser, together with a link providing more information about the setting.
snitzr 14y ago
Microsoft owns part of Facebook. Is DNT the opposite of Facebook's own tracking goals?
jjoergensen 14y ago
If Microsoft wanted to make DNT completely useless and ignored - they may have accomplished their goal.
the_unknown 14y ago
If sites respect the DNT flag sent by the browser then this really should be a great step forward for user privacy contributing to a better web from a user's perspective. As a user I don't care about your politics, alliances, bias, or nefarious (to me) goals. I simply am asked when I start using the browser whether it is okay for sites to track me and I choose the "heck no, of course not" option or the "yeah, whatever, go nuts" option. If I accept all defaults including using Bing as my search engine and DNT as being on who are you (evil web developer at mega-corp) to say my choice is invalid?
mgkimsal 14y ago
someone else pointed this out - if they do this during the initial install/setup of the browser (first time it's run, for example), having explanatory language and an option for DNT that defaults to something is 'good enough'. However... this possibly is too broad. "DNT" may not be something you want to do for all sites/tracking-entities, and the 'experience' of the web as a whole (untargeted ads vs targeted ads) may end up being degraded for IE10 users, who may switch to something else and be less annoyed. ALL of this would be wholly unnecessary if 'cookies' hadn't been (and continued to be) treated as some sort of backroom black-magic that is consistently hidden from users at every turn. A little extra chrome in the browser that displays cookies being set/transmitted, along with an ability to delete/block them - directly from the browser, without having to wade through 'advanced/privacy' menus - would go a long way to giving people easy control and insight in to what's really going on. Paranoid privacy nuts wouldn't trust it anyway, and would keep using hand-compiled lynx or amaya, but the rest of us would be able to quickly see what's going on and prevent things we weren't sure of.
Tooluka 14y ago
I wish someone made a virus which installed tons of anti-adware programs and plugins on target machines. Imagine - every single PC with adblock loaded with rules, wouldn't that be cool :) . inb4: "but ads fund free open web" - I can live with paying subscription for every single site I really want to visit (even huge subscriptions if the site is that good). There are very few of those. AND many "free open" sites do not have ads even now.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Not everyone is rich enough to pay a "huge subscription" to every website they want to visit. In fact many of those who could benefit most from the information on the web are people without much monetary resources (developing countries , students etc)
  - Tooluka 14y ago
    Yeah, I know this argument - if ads are removed that EVERYTHING would be soo expensive and children in Africa are dying etc. etc. World is not black and white. And by the way, please define "rich" and "rich enough".
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      A lot of small websites , phpBB communities etc are entirely ad supported because the owner may not be doing it as a money making exercise, the ads just cover the hosting costs. The fact that results from these smaller sites show up in google searches (i.e not behind a paywall) is a good thing for the web in general as they often have good content, a few non obtrusive banners at the bottom seems like a small price to pay. If a site just bombards me with aggressive advertising I simply don't go back, these sites rarely have good content anyway. I think that having access to free high quality information for people of modest means is a big net win for society at large, but maybe I'm just a socialist..
      - Tooluka 14y ago
        Small sites will just require small fee, one time or recurring. You see, we can't take all site, multiply them by some price and add all results to receive some ridiculous number and declare that man just can't pay that much. Because a single human can't visit all sites on the Internet, physically. One individual has at most 16 hours a day for internet and if someone would estimate average times that the discrete number of sites to visit would be rather low. It is entirely possible (not 100% sure) that after initial shock communities will restructure a little, some really obscure sites with little unique content or services will die, but users won't leave. they'll just shift to occupy all the sites they really want to visit. And right now I see that small and obscure websites are NOT findable in search engines. They don't do SEO and SMO, they are totally dominated by ad driven monsters they produce and produce and produce... well something. Sometimes good content sometimes not. Mostly not actually. I almost never find really good unknown stuff in Google&Co, only by direct links from friends and random people. Such sites are like dark matter of the internet, real but invisible knowledge. Invisible behind the noise from ad giants.
rm999 14y ago
Microsoft is being overly aggressive and has ulterior motives that don't align with their users. Very typical of their short-term Machiavellian style of thinking. Tactically they are making a questionable decision. They are trying to break a very reasonable compromise that would have benefited almost everyone. Instead, as one of the largest tech companies that doesn't depend on advertising revenue, they are trying to use their power to cripple competitors. They won't win. Online advertisers are too powerful (and drive too much of the growth in the economy nowadays), legislation won't regulate the industry in a way that will hand Microsoft a victory. Meanwhile, IE's users will lose because their choice to be tracked will be ignored.
- jusben1369 14y ago
  I assume you railed equally against Google for making Android free given they don't depend on product or hardware sales for revenue but rather advertising? When you're a near monopoly, as MSFT was a decade ago, there might be some muster to your argument. When you're not, you'd be foolish to make a choice that came down on the side of making life easier for your competitors vs more challenging.
  - rm999 14y ago
    >When you're a near monopoly, as MSFT was a decade ago, there might be some muster to your argument. I never made an argument that depends on their market position. Either way, I don't think your comparison is apt. Competition isn't always good on its own; it has to increase global value/efficiency to be a valid, "good" strategy. Android increased global value, Microsoft's decision to go rogue on DNT will probably destroy value. Perhaps even their own.
- Spooky23 14y ago
  Should Microsoft not act in it's self-interest? If you are critiquing Microsoft for doing that, you should be critical of Google for tracking you -- after all, couldn't they just charge for services? At the end of the day, consumers will know that "Do Not Track" is on, and that big advertising networks are igorning it. They won't know or care about the T's and C's of some agreement. They'll also know (because Microsoft will tell them) that Bing, Outlook.com, etc will respect DNT.
mcovey 14y ago
Did anyone think that sending a little DNT header was going to keep them safer or better off in the first place? It is an idea that I would call "cute".
mistercow 14y ago
Sounds to me like MS is trying to call the advertisers' bluff. Perhaps they think government intervention is more likely than some others suspect (or are banking on advertisers believing that).
drcube 14y ago
This shouldn't be necessary. The default behavior of web services should be no tracking, whatsoever, unless specifically agreed to in writing by the user. This should be enforced by laws, not a toothless organization like W3C, and there should be real punishments for disobeying. However, this is a good PR move by Microsoft. They don't make too many of them, so congrats.
- simonbrown 14y ago
  What would you count as tracking? Would websites only have analytics or A/B test results on users that have printed, signed and sent them consent forms?
  - duaneb 14y ago
    That seems a little excessive, but the sentiment is good. Any personal data, including browser history, should not be stored without user consent.... Like a "track me" header field.
  - Dylan16807 14y ago
    I haven't thought of every corner case but I would set up something like this: You can track a user during a single session on a single site. To track across multiple visits the user must set up an account of some sort. To track across multiple sites the user must provide some kind of explicit permission. Anonymize any session records that don't have this kind of permission.
prezjordan 14y ago
I love the contrast in comments here as opposed to the astroturfing in r/technology. Thank you, HN, for being rational.
powertower 14y ago
Why is everyone here skipping the part in the first paragraph that says the user will be provided with a dialog on first-run asking him/her whether they want to turn on, turn off, or dismiss DNT?
- artursapek 14y ago
  I have no idea. Wouldn't that validate it? I don't see why people are so upset over this.
  - mccoyst 14y ago
    People are upset because they wanted to be part of the elite club that maybe possibly would have had their DNT header honored, but now that it's likely that a huge percentage of other people on the web will have the header enabled, suddenly the header will be useless for sure. If this header would have only been useful if it was only enabled by a small set of people, then it has always been stupid, and is in no way Microsoft's fault. Imagine a perfect world where everyone using IE organically decided to poke around in their browser settings, find, understand, and enable DNT. Are the trackers now somehow less justified when they ignore it in this perfect world? No, the motivator is the same — they want to track as many people as possible and "disabled by default" is just a thin excuse. People that are defending the idea of trackers ignoring DNT because of IE are engaging in some weird kind of corporatism.
shadowmint 14y ago
If they want to stick to their guns, aggressively block tracking pixels. This is just messing around with marketing to 'be cool' with their new browser because Chrome is kicking their ass at the moment.
frontier 14y ago
Just IE s#%&ing over web standards like it always has!
- dfranke 14y ago
  Embrace and extinguish.
artursapek 14y ago
I wonder if we can expect Hacker News posts in the next few months pointing out big name advertisers who ignore DNT as bad guys.
jiggy2011 14y ago
There's a bit of a problem with having a binary do/don't track switch. For example if the default becomes "do not track" then that essentially make stuff like google analytics useless and removes a powerful tool for optimising and improving user experience on websites. On the other hand I really don't like it the idea of a website trying to glean my "real" identity and use that to do things which may be anti privacy. I'm going to brace for Windows 8 release when clients suddenly start asking why their traffic has dropped off a cliff.
rickmb 14y ago
"Do Not Track" should not be a default in a browser. It should be the default for every individual in a free country, from birth. The fact that I'm living, breathing human being with a right to privacy should already be enough to imply that no corporation has the right to track my movements with my very explicit, informed and legally verifiable consent. Browser manufacturers should not even be a party in this.
jiggy2011 14y ago
If you want to get your conspiracy theory head on this could be an attempt to pick winners in the online ad world. What if it becomes: Do not track (apart from Microsoft preferred partners). As an aside: Lots of people also seem to have big misunderstandings about browser privacy settings, for example I've spoken with people who believe that the "private browsing" feature in the browser would allow them to browse porn without the IT dept finding out..

128 points by iProject 14y ago

Another pointless act which is simply for show. They want to be able market Internet Explorer by saying "The Browser That Does Not Track You". W3C clearly stated that this is considered an abuse of the DNT flag. As a result, thanks to Microsoft, the flag will start to be ignored completely.

aggronn 14y ago
Microsoft just can't win, can they?
- Flimm 14y ago
  Sure they can. They should do what the W3C wants them to do. But for some reason, in this case, they don't. It makes me want to cry in frustration. DNT was on very shaky grounds to begin with, this just makes things worse.
- qntm 14y ago
  This is the W3C's problem. "An ordinary user agent MUST NOT send a Tracking Preference signal without a user’s explicit consent"? How, exactly, are they intending to detect the user's explicit consent via the medium of HTTP headers? Why introduce a header which almost everybody in the world would probably want to use by default in every one of their HTTP requests and then say that you can't do that? What if I chose my browser specifically because it has DNT by default? Why introduce a header which doesn't do anything unless you really really want it to? The Explicit Consent Requirement is nonsensical. But then the DNT header itself is also nonsensical, because there's no legislation or tangible benefit to make request handlers respect it. Nobody should be tracked unless they've explicitly asked for it.
  - huggyface 14y ago
    Why introduce a header which almost everybody in the world would probably want to use by default in every one of their HTTP requests and then say that you can't do that? Ask everyone in the world if they "don't want to be tracked" and 100% will say yes. Ask everyone in the world if they "don't want to be tracked, understanding that is the economic foundation for almost all of the content they enjoy and thus they will either need to directly pay or go without" and somewhere approaching 0% will say yes. DNT is like commercial skippers on PVRs -- it's beneficial to most user's experience if a small enough group of users partake, but very detrimental if a large enough group uses it.
    - MatthewPhillips 14y ago
      In other words, if you word the question to what your position is, you can get most people to agree with you.
      - huggyface 14y ago
        Is reality really a "position"? Personally I think sites should honor the DNT header by implementing a paywall for such users (really the same holds true for Adblock patrons). Ad-supported sites have an implicit two-way contract that you get content that you obviously want in return for providing advertiser value. If you don't want to provide advertiser value, partake of micropayments or some other mechanisms. As someone who would make use of those alternate payment mechanisms, I would welcome that.
        MatthewPhillips 14y ago
        > Is reality really a "position"? Both of the wordings you provided are positions. The first contained no context and the second is opinionated. > Personally I think sites should honor the DNT header by implementing a paywall for such users (really the same holds true for Adblock patrons). Personally I think tracking should be opt-in (by law) and that websites should have to adjust accordingly (whether that be putting up a pay-wall, finding an alternative revenue stream, making less revenue, or going out of business). > Ad-supported sites have an implicit two-way contract that you get content that you obviously want in return for providing advertiser value. Contracts which potentially do harm upon a person should never be implicit. Knowledge of cookies should not be a requirement for internet use. All contracts should be explicit, and agree upon by both parties.
arscan 14y ago
This doesn't have to do with marketing Internet Explorer as being more secure / privacy friendly. Its about using Internet Explorer's still substantial market share to expose the level of tracking that occurs w/out user knowledge. This hurts companies with an advertising business model (google) because it forces them to either explicitly & openly ignore IE's DNT setting, or to turn off tracking and significantly decrease the value of their advertising. From MS's perspective, that's a win-win.
- huggyface 14y ago
  This doesn't have to do with marketing Internet Explorer as being more secure / privacy friendly Sure it does. When you're losing you need to differentiate, and Microsoft is choosing the "privacy first" route. It's fairly transparent, but it does get them a lot of press (almost all of the "they're really sticking to their principals" variety. At the same time I can't turn on my xbox without endless banners of ads). From MS's perspective, that's a win-win. And from a user's perspective it's a short-term win, long-term loss. I think that the optimal response to IE and DNT is that every ad-supported site puts up a paywall for IE DNT users. If users associated IE with such a negative web experience, its use would quickly crater into the ground.
  - arscan 14y ago
    Fair enough. It is a talking point that puts them on the "right" side of the privacy debate, though I find it hard to believe that people will move from Firefox/chrome because of this feature. Strategically its much more about breaking that which lets companies provide "free" web services, which is something that MS has trouble competing with. Its interesting that google put out chrome to force all browsers to have substantially better performance, thus expediting the migration from local applications to the "cloud". It seems like Microsoft finally decided to use their position to push something else that people care about (privacy) to slow down that migration. Its a long term loss for users if you believe that the loss of control & privacy is worth what you get for free services on the web. Not everybody does.
    - 14y ago

nathan_long 14y ago

Although I appreciate the idea of a Do Not Track header, isn't it a bit like a Do Not Steal sign? You don't use a sign; you use a lock. It seems like it would be more productive to focus on helping users not disclose their identity than helping them ask sites to pretend they don't see it.

MatthewPhillips 14y ago
Reminds me of "this is not a p3p policy".
rickmb 14y ago
You don't start with using a lock either. You start with the general consensus that stealing is socially unacceptable, and you make it illegal. Which is exactly what will inevitably happen with tracking unless tracking with permission becomes the exception rather than the rule. It might even take a few decades, but being tracked by corporations anywhere you go online is socially untenable in a free society. Microsoft understands this, although their enthusiasm is probably more inspired by the fact that a certain competitor that has a major part of its business model depending on it than by ethical considerations.
- nathan_long 14y ago
  >> You don't start with using a lock either. You start with the general consensus that stealing is socially unacceptable, and you make it illegal. And then, as a sensible person, knowing that there exist people who don't care about laws, and knowing that law enforcement can't catch all criminals, you also use a lock. I would love to have laws and penalties for lawbreakers here, but this is the internet: it spans many legal jurisdictions. Law is not a panacea, and it's also much harder to get than a software patch.

4ad 14y ago

Ah, just a new incarnation of the evil bit[1]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit

ConstantineXVI 14y ago
Closer to a "Please don't be evil, kind sir" bit.
- eli 14y ago
  Worse, it conveys the intent of "Please don't be evil and/or I never change my default settings"

Rudism 14y ago

I'm not entirely sure the value of the DNT header in the first place, even if Microsoft doesn't end up completely derailing it with this move... The kinds of advertisers who would voluntarily opt out of tracking behaviors in response to user preference probably aren't the kind of company who would do things with that information that you need to worry about. I can appreciate the intent behind it, and any move toward increased user privacy is a move in the right direction, but I don't think that leaving it in the hands of the advertisers is going to be a particularly effective approach. It may even be detrimental in the sense that a naive user would turn that option on and get a false sense of security.

leejw00t354 14y ago
Personally I question whether Microsoft's main reason for enabling DNT is to protect their user's privacy. If Microsoft can look like the good guys while sticking a knife in Google's back, preventing them tracking users and targeting ads, then they might as well go for it. IE on it's own won't do much damage but other browsers will be under pressure now to also add DNT, after all, they don't want their users to think they're privacy online is safer in IE's hands. If all browsers slowly make this move Google could be affected quite badly. And that is the logic I think Microsoft is using here.
- pilif 14y ago
  The problem is that the spec of the DNT header says that the DNT header can only be sent in response to a conscious decision on the users part. By turning this on by default, the only thing MS accomplishes is that DNT will likely never have an effect for IE10 users. Which could also be exactly what they wanted: Get the good press for enabling the header by default while ensuring that they and everybody else will be able to track IE10 users normally, regardless of the setting being enabled or not.
  - smackfu 14y ago
    Of course, the spec was only changed after Microsoft announced it would be turned on by default.

Serplat 14y ago

The DNT header was likely to be ignored to begin with, but this just seals it. The only way that the DNT header even stood a chance was if it was only enabled by a select few individuals who are greatly concerned with their privacy. By defaulting it to 'on' for users who don't particularly care about their privacy, or understand any of the implications, they essentially guarantee that only a handful of sites will even consider honoring DNT. Assuming they actually stick with this, DNT has lost all of the little meaning it had to begin with.

randomfool 14y ago
Not quite- this is a direct shot at Google's advertising revenue. Google doesn't have the luxury of ignoring this. Microsoft isn't doing this to protect users against nefarious trackers, it's doing it to hurt Google's bottom line.
- Serplat 14y ago
  I suppose that makes some sense. However, it doesn't change the fact that by enabling it by default, most other sites will likely end up just ignoring it, even if that isn't Microsoft's intent.
- kenjackson 14y ago
  Why can't Google ignore this? Don't they make most of their revenue for targeted ads on the search page? Besides, what happened to Google siding with the user even when their revenue was on the line? Wasn't that their corporate position with China? Or is that only the corporate position when it conveniently aligns with other interests? This just seems like a no-brainer.

pilif 14y ago

With the recent amendment (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/default-do-not-track/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/default-do-not-trac...) to the spec of DNT that the header should only be honored if the user has actively chosen not to be tracked, I guess we've just created more data that is transmitted with every HTTP request and subsequently ignored on the server. As IE10 sending DNT isn't a response to a conscious user decision ("I accept the defaults" is not consciously deciding "I don't want to be tracked"), servers are basically free to ignore the header if the browser is IE10. This also means that IE10 will for all intents and purposes always be tracked regardless of what the setting is set to and whether the server in general honors DNT or not (currently I know of only twitter to do so). Way to go!

eykanal 14y ago
My thoughts exactly. Even more so, by "sticking to their guns", Microsoft is essentially creating user confusion over what Do Not Track actually means. It used to mean "advertisers, please do not track me". Now it will mean "advertisers, please do not track me, unless I'm using IE 10." Considering that users have a tough time differentiating between the browser and the internet, this isn't going to help anything.
MatthewPhillips 14y ago
Link to the spec? Seems strange that the default would be "track me".
- smackfu 14y ago
  That's because this whole thing is a bit of a joke. The advertisers will only respect the setting if no one actually selects it.
  - Torn 14y ago
    Whatever happens the advertisers will lean towards tracking; there's just too much money in behavioural profiling not to.
14y ago

jwblackwell 14y ago

This is just a poor attempt to try and damage the biggest online advertising network and their number one competitor - Google. Realistically the DNT header will do nothing for user privacy. Just when you think MS is making progress with IE and the web they pull this stunt.

cooldeal 14y ago

Looks like Microsoft has added some language at setup to inform the user. From http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-sticks-to-default-do-not-track-settings-in-ie-10-7000002289/ http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-sticks-to-default-do-not-trac... >Customers will receive prominent notice that their selection of Express Settings turns DNT “on.” In addition, by using the Customize approach, users will be able to independently turn “on” and “off” a number of settings, including the setting for the DNT signal. A “Learn More” link with detailed information about each recommended setting will help customers decide whether to select Express Settings or Customize. A Privacy Statement link is also available on the screen. Windows 7 customers using IE10 will receive prominent notice that DNT is turned on in their new browser, together with a link providing more information about the setting.

snitzr 14y ago

Microsoft owns part of Facebook. Is DNT the opposite of Facebook's own tracking goals?

jjoergensen 14y ago

If Microsoft wanted to make DNT completely useless and ignored - they may have accomplished their goal.

the_unknown 14y ago

If sites respect the DNT flag sent by the browser then this really should be a great step forward for user privacy contributing to a better web from a user's perspective. As a user I don't care about your politics, alliances, bias, or nefarious (to me) goals. I simply am asked when I start using the browser whether it is okay for sites to track me and I choose the "heck no, of course not" option or the "yeah, whatever, go nuts" option. If I accept all defaults including using Bing as my search engine and DNT as being on who are you (evil web developer at mega-corp) to say my choice is invalid?

mgkimsal 14y ago

someone else pointed this out - if they do this during the initial install/setup of the browser (first time it's run, for example), having explanatory language and an option for DNT that defaults to something is 'good enough'. However... this possibly is too broad. "DNT" may not be something you want to do for all sites/tracking-entities, and the 'experience' of the web as a whole (untargeted ads vs targeted ads) may end up being degraded for IE10 users, who may switch to something else and be less annoyed. ALL of this would be wholly unnecessary if 'cookies' hadn't been (and continued to be) treated as some sort of backroom black-magic that is consistently hidden from users at every turn. A little extra chrome in the browser that displays cookies being set/transmitted, along with an ability to delete/block them - directly from the browser, without having to wade through 'advanced/privacy' menus - would go a long way to giving people easy control and insight in to what's really going on. Paranoid privacy nuts wouldn't trust it anyway, and would keep using hand-compiled lynx or amaya, but the rest of us would be able to quickly see what's going on and prevent things we weren't sure of.

Tooluka 14y ago

I wish someone made a virus which installed tons of anti-adware programs and plugins on target machines. Imagine - every single PC with adblock loaded with rules, wouldn't that be cool :) . inb4: "but ads fund free open web" - I can live with paying subscription for every single site I really want to visit (even huge subscriptions if the site is that good). There are very few of those. AND many "free open" sites do not have ads even now.

jiggy2011 14y ago
Not everyone is rich enough to pay a "huge subscription" to every website they want to visit. In fact many of those who could benefit most from the information on the web are people without much monetary resources (developing countries , students etc)
- Tooluka 14y ago
  Yeah, I know this argument - if ads are removed that EVERYTHING would be soo expensive and children in Africa are dying etc. etc. World is not black and white. And by the way, please define "rich" and "rich enough".
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    A lot of small websites , phpBB communities etc are entirely ad supported because the owner may not be doing it as a money making exercise, the ads just cover the hosting costs. The fact that results from these smaller sites show up in google searches (i.e not behind a paywall) is a good thing for the web in general as they often have good content, a few non obtrusive banners at the bottom seems like a small price to pay. If a site just bombards me with aggressive advertising I simply don't go back, these sites rarely have good content anyway. I think that having access to free high quality information for people of modest means is a big net win for society at large, but maybe I'm just a socialist..
    - Tooluka 14y ago
      Small sites will just require small fee, one time or recurring. You see, we can't take all site, multiply them by some price and add all results to receive some ridiculous number and declare that man just can't pay that much. Because a single human can't visit all sites on the Internet, physically. One individual has at most 16 hours a day for internet and if someone would estimate average times that the discrete number of sites to visit would be rather low. It is entirely possible (not 100% sure) that after initial shock communities will restructure a little, some really obscure sites with little unique content or services will die, but users won't leave. they'll just shift to occupy all the sites they really want to visit. And right now I see that small and obscure websites are NOT findable in search engines. They don't do SEO and SMO, they are totally dominated by ad driven monsters they produce and produce and produce... well something. Sometimes good content sometimes not. Mostly not actually. I almost never find really good unknown stuff in Google&Co, only by direct links from friends and random people. Such sites are like dark matter of the internet, real but invisible knowledge. Invisible behind the noise from ad giants.

rm999 14y ago

Microsoft is being overly aggressive and has ulterior motives that don't align with their users. Very typical of their short-term Machiavellian style of thinking. Tactically they are making a questionable decision. They are trying to break a very reasonable compromise that would have benefited almost everyone. Instead, as one of the largest tech companies that doesn't depend on advertising revenue, they are trying to use their power to cripple competitors. They won't win. Online advertisers are too powerful (and drive too much of the growth in the economy nowadays), legislation won't regulate the industry in a way that will hand Microsoft a victory. Meanwhile, IE's users will lose because their choice to be tracked will be ignored.

jusben1369 14y ago
I assume you railed equally against Google for making Android free given they don't depend on product or hardware sales for revenue but rather advertising? When you're a near monopoly, as MSFT was a decade ago, there might be some muster to your argument. When you're not, you'd be foolish to make a choice that came down on the side of making life easier for your competitors vs more challenging.
- rm999 14y ago
  >When you're a near monopoly, as MSFT was a decade ago, there might be some muster to your argument. I never made an argument that depends on their market position. Either way, I don't think your comparison is apt. Competition isn't always good on its own; it has to increase global value/efficiency to be a valid, "good" strategy. Android increased global value, Microsoft's decision to go rogue on DNT will probably destroy value. Perhaps even their own.
Spooky23 14y ago
Should Microsoft not act in it's self-interest? If you are critiquing Microsoft for doing that, you should be critical of Google for tracking you -- after all, couldn't they just charge for services? At the end of the day, consumers will know that "Do Not Track" is on, and that big advertising networks are igorning it. They won't know or care about the T's and C's of some agreement. They'll also know (because Microsoft will tell them) that Bing, Outlook.com, etc will respect DNT.

mcovey 14y ago

Did anyone think that sending a little DNT header was going to keep them safer or better off in the first place? It is an idea that I would call "cute".

mistercow 14y ago

Sounds to me like MS is trying to call the advertisers' bluff. Perhaps they think government intervention is more likely than some others suspect (or are banking on advertisers believing that).

drcube 14y ago

This shouldn't be necessary. The default behavior of web services should be no tracking, whatsoever, unless specifically agreed to in writing by the user. This should be enforced by laws, not a toothless organization like W3C, and there should be real punishments for disobeying. However, this is a good PR move by Microsoft. They don't make too many of them, so congrats.

simonbrown 14y ago
What would you count as tracking? Would websites only have analytics or A/B test results on users that have printed, signed and sent them consent forms?
- duaneb 14y ago
  That seems a little excessive, but the sentiment is good. Any personal data, including browser history, should not be stored without user consent.... Like a "track me" header field.
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  I haven't thought of every corner case but I would set up something like this: You can track a user during a single session on a single site. To track across multiple visits the user must set up an account of some sort. To track across multiple sites the user must provide some kind of explicit permission. Anonymize any session records that don't have this kind of permission.

prezjordan 14y ago

I love the contrast in comments here as opposed to the astroturfing in r/technology. Thank you, HN, for being rational.

powertower 14y ago

Why is everyone here skipping the part in the first paragraph that says the user will be provided with a dialog on first-run asking him/her whether they want to turn on, turn off, or dismiss DNT?

artursapek 14y ago
I have no idea. Wouldn't that validate it? I don't see why people are so upset over this.
- mccoyst 14y ago
  People are upset because they wanted to be part of the elite club that maybe possibly would have had their DNT header honored, but now that it's likely that a huge percentage of other people on the web will have the header enabled, suddenly the header will be useless for sure. If this header would have only been useful if it was only enabled by a small set of people, then it has always been stupid, and is in no way Microsoft's fault. Imagine a perfect world where everyone using IE organically decided to poke around in their browser settings, find, understand, and enable DNT. Are the trackers now somehow less justified when they ignore it in this perfect world? No, the motivator is the same — they want to track as many people as possible and "disabled by default" is just a thin excuse. People that are defending the idea of trackers ignoring DNT because of IE are engaging in some weird kind of corporatism.

shadowmint 14y ago

If they want to stick to their guns, aggressively block tracking pixels. This is just messing around with marketing to 'be cool' with their new browser because Chrome is kicking their ass at the moment.

frontier 14y ago

Just IE s#%&ing over web standards like it always has!

dfranke 14y ago
Embrace and extinguish.

artursapek 14y ago

I wonder if we can expect Hacker News posts in the next few months pointing out big name advertisers who ignore DNT as bad guys.

jiggy2011 14y ago

There's a bit of a problem with having a binary do/don't track switch. For example if the default becomes "do not track" then that essentially make stuff like google analytics useless and removes a powerful tool for optimising and improving user experience on websites. On the other hand I really don't like it the idea of a website trying to glean my "real" identity and use that to do things which may be anti privacy. I'm going to brace for Windows 8 release when clients suddenly start asking why their traffic has dropped off a cliff.

rickmb 14y ago

"Do Not Track" should not be a default in a browser. It should be the default for every individual in a free country, from birth. The fact that I'm living, breathing human being with a right to privacy should already be enough to imply that no corporation has the right to track my movements with my very explicit, informed and legally verifiable consent. Browser manufacturers should not even be a party in this.

jiggy2011 14y ago

If you want to get your conspiracy theory head on this could be an attempt to pick winners in the online ad world. What if it becomes: Do not track (apart from Microsoft preferred partners). As an aside: Lots of people also seem to have big misunderstandings about browser privacy settings, for example I've spoken with people who believe that the "private browsing" feature in the browser would allow them to browse porn without the IT dept finding out..