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Comment by andyn | Hacker News Reader

Firstly I'm glad we don't have attack ads like this in the UK.

Secondly I was curious as to how a consumer group managed to get enough cash together to make this. A quick search reveals http://techrights.org/2009/05/04/consumer-watchdog-exposed/ which suggests that Consumer Watchdog is a for-hire astroturfing organisation hired by Microsoft.

Certainly Google aren't completely innocent and raising awareness among people about privacy on the internet is a good thing. But this ad doesn't seem to have come about from the goodness of someone's heart.

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I could see Microsoft sponsoring anti-Google astroturfing, but it seems strange that they'd sponsor something specifically calling for a "do not track" list for the web. Is Microsoft actually in favor of that? It's not impossible, but I would've guessed that it would be something they'd be opposed to, given that it'd also put restrictions on them.

Microsoft need not necessarily be an advocate of "do not track" if their only interest is in damaging Google's brand.

Microsoft have long advocated for internet IDs and a "do not track" policy would establish that.

A "do not track" list on the internet doesn't make sense, the reason ad networks use cookies is because people don't have an identifiable ID online, so they are proposing government mandated internet IDs which is exactly the opposite of what you want if privacy is what you're after.

Ah, I had missed that part. Nicely nefarious: the reason we need to mandate trackable internet IDs is to protect your privacy.

what about a simple standard navigator control emitting headers or maybe a kind of cookies stating that you don't want to be tracked ? i don't see the need for any ID

Google lets you do that. You can opt out of advertising cookies [1] and Google Analytics [2].

[1] http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html

[2] http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en

Nasty. Is that common in the tech industry? I knew Microsoft was ruthless in business, but this is just shameful.

To be clear, as andyn said: the blog post "suggests that Consumer Watchdog is a for-hire astroturfing organisation hired by Microsoft." Emphasis mine.

Take a look around his site. For example, the links at the very top include: "Comes vs. Microsoft", "OOXML", "OpenDocument", "Novell". He's not an impartial observer.

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