To be honest I have no confidence in DNT. It relies on me trusting the very companies whose business it is to track users. I'm not their consumer so they have no incentive to treat me fairly or reasonably. In the last month we've seen how companies will do anything to get as much information about users as possible, even it means 'working around' obstacles. Even if DNT was law there would be no way to validate it was actually being adhered to, without examining every line of code in play. Even then someone will find a novel way (flash cookies etc). For the moment all I have is Firefox Addons like Ghostery, AdBlock, Better Privacy and regularly cleaning my cache/local storage/flash cookies. Even then it's an arms race.
I agree. The big problem with DNT is the lack of an enforcement mechanism. Basically any company can profess to comply with DNT, ignore it, and enjoy the false trust until they're caught. And once caught, there are no consequences.