4 ms·
I think you give them too much credit. I think Microsoft, having little to lose in the way of targeted advertising, simply wanted more people to use DNT to hurt
by eli 12y ago
I think you give them too much credit. I think Microsoft, having little to lose in the way of targeted advertising, simply wanted more people to use DNT to hurt or even just embarrass its competitors. I don't think they intended to torpedo the whole spec on purpose. (And, indeed, I don't see any severe legislation on the horizon)
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoMicrosoft has torpedoes many specs in the past, intentionally. They are certainly in that business. There is no reason to doubt that an appearance of torpedoing a spec wasn't exactly that - its the simplest explanation.
- grimman 12y agoThere's definitely precedent for that behavior from Microsoft's side, obvious or not (a certain anti-trust case springs to mind). They have nothing to gain by being obvious about it, and everything to gain by being a whole lot more sneaky about it. I'm not saying it's necessarily what happened with the DNT header, but they'd do well to avoid drawing too much attention to themselves in certain cases.
- eli 12y agoWell, no, because they actually want something like Do Not Track to succeed. The theory that they made it fail on purpose so that an even stronger version of the same idea will come about is definitely not the simplest explanation.