3 ms·

DNT was essentially dead quite a while ago. If we are goign to get something like Do Not Track, then it should have been drafted out of the public eye, had a n

DNT was essentially dead quite a while ago. If we are goign to get something like Do Not Track, then it should have been drafted out of the public eye, had a nice short period for public comment and then recieved some sort of backing in law. Speculative implementations didn't really help. I'm not too familiar with the laws surrounding things like 'do not call' lists and anti-spam measures, but some sort of system from that area of law could surely have been a part of DNT.

tfgg 12y ago
And the EU, rather than doing this, enacted their dumb 'cookie law' which, as far as I can tell, has just meant every UK website now has unnecessary cluttery popups telling you that they're using cookies.
- thomasfoster96 12y ago
  I'm pretty sure a sizeable number of non-EU based sites added cookie popups as well. Cookie popups were stupid - cookies aren't really an opt-in system. DNT should have been an opt-out system for off-site tracking. If Facebook tracks you through a like button or Google tracks you through an ad/analytics after you sent then a DNT header, they get into trouble. Maybe the header size effect DNT could have been mitigated by not sending it to sites with the same origin as the current page (or another origin policy that the website specifies).
- rb12345 12y ago
  That was around before DNT (just). Given that the popups were required in any case and are site-specific acceptance, why bother with DNT? It was more work to implement for zero benefit. Admittedly that also applies to the popups, but those were less optional.
eli 12y ago
At the risk of stating the obvious, Do Not Call has not stopped phone scams and telemarketing and CAN-SPAM has not stopped actual spam. It's hard for me to get too excited about a Do Not Track solution that only really applies to the sort of companies that follow the rules in the first place.
- thomasfoster96 12y ago
  Well, I'd say Do Not Call and CAN-SPAM are somewhat different in that it's not a user initiating the communication - for Do Not Track it's the user (via the browser) initiating communication.
JadeNB 12y ago
> If we are goign to get something like Do Not Track, then it should have been drafted out of the public eye, had a nice short period for public comment and then recieved some sort of backing in law. I'm confused by this—how would drafting the law / specification / whatever out of the public eye have helped the process?
- thomasfoster96 12y ago
  I think doing it out of the public eye might have stopped premature use and implementations. Inconsistencies really had to be avoided, but without much of a concrete draft, implementations like Microsoft's sort of derailed the effort.
  - JadeNB 12y ago
    > I think doing it out of the public eye might have stopped premature use and implementations. Sure, but so doing might carry its own risk—namely, no community investment once the proposal was released. A very consistent proposal by which no-one feels represented isn't necessarily an improvement!

tfgg 12y ago

And the EU, rather than doing this, enacted their dumb 'cookie law' which, as far as I can tell, has just meant every UK website now has unnecessary cluttery popups telling you that they're using cookies.

thomasfoster96 12y ago
I'm pretty sure a sizeable number of non-EU based sites added cookie popups as well. Cookie popups were stupid - cookies aren't really an opt-in system. DNT should have been an opt-out system for off-site tracking. If Facebook tracks you through a like button or Google tracks you through an ad/analytics after you sent then a DNT header, they get into trouble. Maybe the header size effect DNT could have been mitigated by not sending it to sites with the same origin as the current page (or another origin policy that the website specifies).
rb12345 12y ago
That was around before DNT (just). Given that the popups were required in any case and are site-specific acceptance, why bother with DNT? It was more work to implement for zero benefit. Admittedly that also applies to the popups, but those were less optional.

eli 12y ago

At the risk of stating the obvious, Do Not Call has not stopped phone scams and telemarketing and CAN-SPAM has not stopped actual spam. It's hard for me to get too excited about a Do Not Track solution that only really applies to the sort of companies that follow the rules in the first place.

thomasfoster96 12y ago
Well, I'd say Do Not Call and CAN-SPAM are somewhat different in that it's not a user initiating the communication - for Do Not Track it's the user (via the browser) initiating communication.

JadeNB 12y ago

> If we are goign to get something like Do Not Track, then it should have been drafted out of the public eye, had a nice short period for public comment and then recieved some sort of backing in law. I'm confused by this—how would drafting the law / specification / whatever out of the public eye have helped the process?

thomasfoster96 12y ago
I think doing it out of the public eye might have stopped premature use and implementations. Inconsistencies really had to be avoided, but without much of a concrete draft, implementations like Microsoft's sort of derailed the effort.
- JadeNB 12y ago
  > I think doing it out of the public eye might have stopped premature use and implementations. Sure, but so doing might carry its own risk—namely, no community investment once the proposal was released. A very consistent proposal by which no-one feels represented isn't necessarily an improvement!