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sdfhbdf

It’s cliche but why for the love of god cant they honor Do Not Track that is a toggle in every browser [0].

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track

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DNT was never going to work, because you're asking scumbags, who make money in scummy ways, to please not be scumbags.

Because browser vendors decided to toggle it to on by default, which made it meaningless.

In what way did it make that meaningless?

In the sense that browser vendors decided to put on a privacy protection facade by enabling a "privacy protection" flag that webshites can easily ignore. The earn kudos from users while websites can keep abusing said users. Win-win for greed.

It didn't. Advertisers like to think that they have a moral right to track people unless explicitly told not to stalk people. In that framework, changing the default means that a DoNotTrack header doesn't necessarily show intent on the part of the user.

Instead, the appropriate framework is that advertisers do not have a moral right to track users unless the user has consented to it. By having the DoNotTrack header be on by default, it means that a user removing it shows consent to be tracked, where previously its absence could also have indicated that the user was unaware of the header.

100% agreed. That was the point I was making.

Got it. I have a hard time telling apart a request for information (and receiving MisterTea's misinformation) from the opening to a Socratic dialog.

That would be a good framework!

But that's not what DoNotTrack was. It was supposed to show specific intent. It wasn't there to change the default.

So by removing the intent, the fragile agreement broke entirely.

If you want to change the default, you need something that can be enforced.

The default has never changed from the point of view of the user. The default is "don't steal my data". DNT was just reflecting the reality of the situation: user not making a choice indicates they don't want you to steal their data.

> The default is "don't steal my data".

It pretty clearly isn't. It should be but isn't.

> DNT was just reflecting the reality of the situation: user not making a choice indicates they don't want you to steal their data.

Advertisers don't need a header telling them what they should do by default. They can get that information from elsewhere. DNT was going to be a way to opt-out, and some advertisers promised to listen to that. Setting DNT without user action removes the "opt".

Honestly I think people accepted this claim too easily. First of all only one browser did that AFAIK. Second of all even if it were entirely opt in it’s another fingerprinting target and was actively being used for that. I really don’t think the people who would fingerprint DNT care one bit whether it’s an explicit statement of intent or not.

It isn't meaningless, it just means that users don't consent by default. That's the default state; permission should always be explicit.

Perhaps the header should be made to be easy to apply per domain, so websites can request tracking permissions, but in my opinion the necessity of the header is exactly the point of enabling it by default.

The header is simple: I do not want to be tracked. Do not track me. If you want to track me, ask me to disable the header so I can leave your website.

Honestly, I don't understand why this header wasn't mentioned in the ePrivacy directive the EU passed recently. There's a perfectly good way to communicate intent about tracking options to websites, and it's being blatantly ignored.

It did not made it meaningless, it made it mean that people didn't opt in for tracking. And of course nobody has.

Which is what it should have been to begin with: a “do track” header that no sane person would opt in for.

The whole “people consent to everything unless they go out of their way to say otherwise” thing is a farce.

Because they unfortunately don't have to legally. It never caught on in politics and lawmaking. Not even the GDPR seemed to bother revisiting it.

By honoring it they would loose an advantage over all the other ones who don't.

Maybe https://globalprivacycontrol.org/ could change that.

If it's enabled by default as it seems to be for DDG [1] then it's gonna probably share the fate of DNT.

[1]: https://spreadprivacy.com/global-privacy-control-enabled-by-...

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