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Comment by PufPufPuf | Hacker News Reader

This is set up for the same fate as DNT in browsers. Collecting all the "do not track" env vars into a single "do_not_track.env" file, however, may not be a bad idea...

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https://toptout.me - exists and handles a lot of these problems, if not looking to create a new wheel.

Though if you just want a simple ENV var that handles this WHILE honoring the specification on this page: https://github.com/alloydwhitlock/do-not-track-cli

Advertisers chose to ignore DNT because they claimed Microsoft making DNT enabled by default took agency away from the user. In reality, they probably weren't going to honor it anyway.

Microsoft is too sophisticated to plead ignorance; they are responsible for that outcome and I think we can assume they knowningly chose it. (Though now Microsoft browsers are such a small portion of the market that it doesn't matter.)

The biggest failure of DNT was browser makers - including Mozilla - removing it. It has zero performance impact (1 bit?) or development cost. As long as it was out there, when there was momentum against tracking, advocates had evidence of both demand for privacy and of trackers ignoring user wishes.

> advocates had evidence of both demand for privacy and of trackers ignoring user wishes.

This evidence both still exists and is also completely useless for anything. The more important consideration, by far, is that the DNT flag was actively harmful to users in the real world because, if it was acknowledged at all, it was used maliciously to help fingerprint and track users. There is no reason for browsers to continue providing to their users a toggle that not only misleads them about what will happen with the setting enabled, but actively contributes to the opposite outcome because we live in a world where being evil is the norm.

Lately, I've come across websites that instead of a cookie banner display a banner that states they recognize and honor my wish to not be tracked. Whether that really do or not is something I did not spend time looking into. The first time I saw it I thought it was a fluke, and then it happened a few more times with in a short time period. Couldn't tell you what sites they were though as it was just something from search results.

Wow. I've never seen that. It would be great if it became more widespread.

But isn't DNT deprecated in most browsers? Maybe I misremember.

::shrug:: I set it a long time ago and never looked back. I never looked into it being deprecated, but I knew that pretty much everyone ignored it for reasons. But by these banners, I'm guessing it still lives on as a setting.

Advertisers ignored it because MS decided to turn it into opt-in instead of opt-out, and advertisers very much hate opt-in. They'd much rather require the most permissive defaults, and put every barrier they can in front of opting out.

Users usually don't know about or change settings, so opt-out often means little. What portion of users knows about DNT? 1% 0.1%

Microsoft knows that; they rendered DNT meaningless:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47990485

Just here to say yeah, I've seen this more of this lately- "The do-not-track signal has been followed" or somesuch.

GPC must be honored in California. https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa/gpc

According to https://www.didomi.io/blog/global-privacy-control-gpc-2026 it must also be honored in 11 other states but I'm not familiar enough with the specifics regarding those.

Global Privacy Control replaced Do Not Track.

No, the advertisers were responsible for that outcome, by using that as a flimsy excuse to ignore the setting

Browsers only removed it once it was clear that the advertising industry was going to refuse to honor it

There's an inherent conflict. No one _wants_ to be tracked, there is no direct benefit to being tracked and only downsides. And advertisers want to track you. So there was no way to respect the flag other than making it obscure so only a few dedicated people turned it on.

> No one _wants_ to be tracked

Plenty of people seem to genuinely believe that “personalized ads” are good for them.

They are told to believe that.

and yet if they had question prompted to them even most of them would click "no"

No, they don’t. They will click whichever option gets the modal out of the way.

No-one is too absolute, but could ne used as a rough rule of thumb.

Depending on the study, 0.16% to 7% want to get tracked.

https://noyb.eu/sites/default/files/2025-07/Pay_or_Okay_Repo...

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

I think getting ads that are relevant to me is better than compete nonsense. BUT, I also don’t want to give advertisers any information to do it. (Maybe A.S.L. is ok to share?)

Yes. I know my two thoughts are in conflict, for the advertisers. Too bad for them. Figure it out.

To play devils advocate there is a direct benefit to being tracked, at least theoretically search and ads will more relevant to you. I get no one wants ads but you do see ads here and there. It would arguably be better for you if everyone of them was relevant than not. Similarly search or even LLM answers could be better if the preferences of the asker are known

No, in not making excuses for tracking and I do lots of stuff myself of avoid being tracked

I’m only responding to the false premise that there are no benefits. There are. You can just choose to believe they aren’t worth the cost. I believe they aren’t but I have friends who opt into all tracking and even register their presence with multiple apps. They believe they’ll make more positive connections

> theoretically > they believe

Exactly. From my experience: the times I've found an ad relevant and worth clicking is about one-to-a-gazillion. Maybe relevance is higher for others but that still doesn't necessarily translate to real value. (ie. your life was improved in any way)

Also, this all presumes the targeting actually works and the current sea ads for shoes I just bought disagree with that. It's all just spam.

In other words, advertisers wrangled out of something that could help people because they claimed it wasn't the true intent of people?

Advertisers are the scum of the Earth, as someone with ADHD who doesn't ever consent to my attention being stolen in that way. I really don't care what their opinion is, since they're intruding into my headspace without permission

Love it. This is an annoying problem and likely the actual solution than asking folks to use a universal one. I'll put something together as a starting point.

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