back to article Microsoft drops Do Not Track default from Internet Explorer

Microsoft has reversed its position on the contentious Do Not Track (DNT) browser feature, saying Internet Explorer will no longer send DNT signals to websites by default. "Put simply, we are updating our approach to DNT to eliminate any misunderstanding about whether our chosen implementation will comply with the W3C standard …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Right now, when a consumer puts Do Not Track in the header, we don't know what they mean,"

    What the fuck do you think it means? Read a bloody dictionary.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      They could look up Yahoo while they're at it: "Yahoos are primitive creatures obsessed with "pretty stones" as Defoe considered them...

      1. bearcat32

        they are not coward

        anonymous is not coward they are protecting there selves from the hitaus men that would want us not to do any thing but they mean plans to destory the common people and they are here . do u have any idea how mean the cia is or how about the bilards or the fema that wants to put the people in camps to burn us alive like hilter and u need to educate ur selve

      2. Tim99 Silver badge

        @AC

        They could look up Yahoo while they're at it: "Yahoos are primitive creatures obsessed with "pretty stones" as Defoe considered them...

        Lemuel Gulliver, Gulliver's Travels Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms (1715) by Jonathan Swift.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @AC

          by Jonathan Swift.

          Oops, quite right. Sorry.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      DNT is an interesting experiment. An experiment made more useless by enabling it for all users by default. By not enabling it by default, it could be said that W3C and everyone are penalizing unsophisticated users. However unless DNT is respected by force of law, it doesn't matter anyway, since it can simply be ignored by the ad industry.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        "it can simply be ignored by the ad industry."

        s/can/will/

    3. jonathanb Silver badge

      What the fuck do you think it means? Read a bloody dictionary.

      You can't expect them to understand something when their livelihood depends on them not understanding it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "You can't expect them to understand something when their livelihood consumption depends on them not understanding it."

        W3C has always pushed for web standards, and now that privacy theft is the new web standard... Can't say this is a surprise. Back when the W3C pushed for things like XHTML I felt some sort confidence in them for the fact that what they were pushing wasn't what corporations were using (but look were that got us :-/). But now in the wake of the great privacy steal, I think they are just another ferry man. I can't prove this, however there is little to disprove it.

        Basically, trust no one right now setting standards for you on your behalf, especially when they haven't even bothered to ask you!!! That is the real mystery, who asked the W3C to push for something else, and how exactly was the evidenced produced?

    4. tom dial Silver badge

      The meaning of the DNT signal is ambiguous if Microsoft makes it the default: it may mean that the user or whoever set up the system consciously selected that, or it may mean the PC was set up using the Microsoft default. If the default (for all browsers) is to not set the DNT switch, it is an unambiguous signal when it is present.

      I also had a knee-jerk reaction that no tracking should be the default, but see the point of the recommended default, especially as it is only a request and gives web sites a slightly plausible excuse to ignore it.

      I never bothered to enable it because my browsing activity is pretty innocuous and I don't care too much one way or the other about tracking. AdBlock+ seems to deal reasonably with ads, including the 3 it is blocking now.

      1. Oninoshiko

        @tom Dial

        So, privacy should be opt-in? I think you all (and the ad industry, and the W3C) have it completely ass-backward. It should be a "Stalk me" flag. Honestly, the big problem is the damn flags don't DO anything; you're still trusting a morally bankrupt industry to do the right thing.

        Didn't Bill Hicks have something to say about ad men?

  2. James 51

    This is ine time Microsoft is on the right side of the argumentant. DNT should be the default (and ISPs shouldn't be adding anything to the headers to circumvent it).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No

      If you make it the default, web sites will just ignore it saying "the user didn't intend to set it like that". If the default is off, then anyone who has DNT set most definitely DID intend to set that, and that argument that they "didn't mean to" falls flat.

      What is the point of a setting like that if it defaults to not allowing tracking? No one is going to enable that.

      1. Mike Bell

        Re: No

        What's wrong with legislating so that privacy is assumed to be the case by default? If websites claim confusion because the user's intents aren't clear, that's tough. Unless DNT is false or absent in the browser's request header, websites should be obliged not to track the user, with punitive measures for failure to comply.

        The site operators can easily provide instructions for idiots to permit tracking.

        In my opinion, a move like this would be far more useful than being required to plaster silly warnings about cookies on websites. Come on EU, crack the whip!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: No

          If you LEGISLATE it, sure. Do not track is not a legal requirement, it is "please do this because I'm asking nicely, but I know I can't hold you to it". If you make it universal, they'll just ignore it. If you make a law, that's great, but that's an option only available to those of you in the EU. In the US the odds of such a law are zero.

          1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

            Re: No

            "If you make a law, that's great, but that's an option only available to those of you in the EU. In the US the odds of such a law are zero."

            Then get rid of your useless, corrupt, inept and socially backwards rulers. Stop wasting your time preventing gay people from marrying and start finding a way to provide health care to your people universally and at the same cost per citizen as the rest of the civilized world. Stop locking up your people for stupid petty shit and start educating them instead, so that they aren't trapped in a life of poverty that requires crime for subsistence.

            In short, stop treating your populace as peasantry to be kept ignorant and oppressed and maybe - just maybe - your country wouldn't suck out loud. Of course, that would me throwing all the idiots who believe in supply side economics or want a theocracy into the ocean, but to be perfectly honest you lot should be doing that as a matter of course.

            1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

              Re: No

              Ouch! A bit(!) harsh on poor Doug who actually made a good point - without legislation, no company is going to honour a DNT setting if it defaults to on. - it's going to be hard enough as it is when it defaults to unset!

              I'm all for privacy, hate tracking, and I'm sure Doug does too - that doesn't mean he's incorrect.

              As an aside, I'd trust any server-side DNT as much as I would a Welshman at a sheepfarm - legalized or not.. The worst offenders will be those dodgy ones with no care for the law...

              1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

                Re: No

                No, the worst offenders are the ones above the law. Then there are some criminals who would track people regardless, but they would be investigated by the law and brought to justice. That's what laws are for.

                Let me put this another way. In Canada there is a phone register where you put your phone number ever 3 or so years and you are on the list for "do not telemarket to me you poxy whoresons". Only newspapers registered charities (usually "can we pick up used household items") and political campaigns are exempt from this law.

                Immediately after implementation the number of irritating phone calls dropped to about 10%. Of those, the "can we pick up used household items" folks are useful because they send a truck round twice a year to pick up stuff you've no use for. Newspapers could fuck off any time - as could politicians - but a call a week from those groups is way better than the 10-20 a night of telemarketers we were getting before.

                Now, there are scammers - mostly based out of the US and India - but you know that they are scammers because they are not respecting the do not call list. You can just hang up on them.

                Most individuals and companies obey the law. They don't want to pay fines or end up in jail. Some organizations (newspapers in this case, technology companies in the case of online advertising) try to have the laws drafted so as not to affect them.

                Only governments and politicians think themselves truly above the law. Everyone else are criminals, and you can ignore them because they are criminals.

                In the case of DNT and online advertising there are whitelists that are assembled and can be fed into things like AdBlock. Compliance with the initative gets you on the white list. Non compliance gets you blocked. One day we may be able to take a blacklist approach, and that would be nice...but it would require laws and proven enforcement before we go there.

                But therein lies the problem: the corrupt governments - namely the US - that won't look after individual liberties. Most especially because they are the worst offenders for infringing on civil liberties.

                So because the almighty US of A refuses to not be a worthless sack of fetid shit, ordinary citizens need to take their own liberties into their own hands. In this case, through methods like Adblock.

                Were laws in place legitimate companies would follow them. Period. They might rail and moan and lobby and campaign, but when all is said and done they'd obey. The risks of not doing so are just too high.

                Unfortunately we can't get laws put in place. The reason is a combination of fatalistic apathy (which the American populace excels at) and a blame-the-victim mentality that is fucking abhorrent.

                We have made serious dents in these sorts of problems in other spheres. We can make serious dents in these problems online as well. Can we completely eliminate the issues? No. But we can make it obvious who are criminals and who are not and implement technologies to isolate those criminals and mitigate the damage they do.

                And for the record, individuals seeking privacy are not the criminals here. Those seeking to infringe the privacy of others are. And for that matter, those who meekly accede to those who want to invade the privacy of us all should be tried as accomplices!

                I wasn't too harsh on Doug at all. If anything, I was far, far too lenient.

                1. tom dial Silver badge

                  Re: No

                  For the US DNC application see

                  https://www.donotcall.gov/

                  It has been available for over a decade. Telemarketers who call numbers on the list, or who do not subscribe to the list and call numbers either on the list or not are subject to a fine that can go as high as $16,000 per call made.

                  1. Charles 9

                    Re: No

                    And if the caller is I'D as international and vanishes the next day?

                    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

                      Re: No

                      "And if the caller is I'D as international and vanishes the next day?"

                      Then they succeed in annoying you. That said, you know they're a scam because they aren't obeying the DNC.

                      Just because a given law isn't perfect and doesn't solve every possible use case doesn't mean it isn't a step in the right direction. What would you prefer, a DNC law that is imperfect and in which some scammers make it through or no DNC law at all in which you are irritated dozens of times a night by telemarketers?

                      People who let perfect be the enemy of good are, to my thinking, batshit crazy.

              2. BongoJoe
                Pint

                Re: No

                I'd trust any server-side DNT as much as I would a Welshman at a sheepfarm

                Says a Mr Jones. Care to share something with us?

                1. Jamie Jones Silver badge
                  Thumb Up

                  Re: No

                  "I'd trust any server-side DNT as much as I would a Welshman at a sheepfarm

                  Says a Mr Jones. Care to share something with us?"

                  Yep, Welsh born and bred with a passionate hatred of restraining orders! :)

            2. Dan Paul

              Re: No @ Trevor Potts

              Conversely, some of us could ask you to shut up and quit spouting your Anti-American, Anti-Religious propaganda. You are as big a Nazi as those whom you accuse.

              Maybe then, just maybe; there could be a little civil discourse on this website without YOUR bigotted namecalling of every thing and person you don't like. There is no one on this site that even approaches you in the vitriolic manner that you attack everyone and anyone with a different viewpoint than yours.

              Really, time to get back (or start) on the medication Trevor. You have a lot of anger, too much anger to be let loose in society. Every single post you make is full of it. Not one thing in this world makes you happy.

              1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

                Re: No @ Trevor Potts

                Hey, everyone, I made a religious Tea Party type all angry! What a perfect, glorious start to a Monday. I'm so proud!

                Seriously though, Mr. Paul, you can't shame me into thinking I should be tolerant towards bigots. That whole "you're not tolerant unless you tolerate the intolerant" thing is bollocks, and I don't buy it.

                There are lots of things that make me happy. The problem you and I have is that I am made happy by things like "organizations and governments that comply with the UDHR" and "your right to swing ends at the point of my nose". I'm made angry by religions and politics that seek to control people.

                And no, corporations aren't people.

                So, in general, a whole lot of the first world outside of the US, the UK and OZ makes me very happy! Especially Nordic countries. Oh, every country has their flaws, but there are still some pretty great thigns in this world...even great politics!

                But America? I can't see why I would like it, Mr Paul. It's filled with people like you. And there's not a damned thing to like about you.

                As for "bigoted namecalling", I don't particularly see why I should refrain. The whacko loony tunes side of the right wing pulpit certainly doesn't hold back. Why honour them by treating them or their viewpoints as somehow worthy of anything other than utter contempt and extreme prejudice? They don't espouse evidence-based philosophies, ideals, politics or really anything. So why should I spend even a bent iota of time attempting to play nice, use logic or bother with evidence when debating them?

                Attempting to have a rational, evidence-based, logical conversation with someone who honestly believes "because God" is an acceptable answer to something is completely pointless. Similarly, attempting to have such a conversation wtih someone who still believes - against all evidence - that supply side economics works, is just silly.

                The whacko right wing aren't espousing rational philosophies or using rational argumentation. They are using faith and rhetoric! You can't argue against faith and rhetoric with logic and expect anything other than a circular wankfest. So fuck it, skip it, and go straight to simply calling them out for being crazy and then ostracizing them.

                So, you know what? I think I'll keep on keeping on. Making you unhappy and pissing in the cheerios of the types of folks who think they have a "right" to control women's vaginas, people's sexual orientations and how many people of what colour live where. I'll piss off that lot with a shit-eating grin on my face and feel great about myself.

                I've read your own posts, sir. You're pretty damned vitriolic yourself. Of course, you seem to think that's fine, so long as it's "the evil liberals" you're attacking. Well boo fucking hoo. Your entire life philosophy is wrong, and I'm not afraid to call you on it over and over and over and over. Let's dance a dance and weave our tapestry of political interferometry across the Internets, shall we?

                It seems like the thing to do.

                1. Keven E.

                  Thanks, Trevor.

                  "... a little civil discourse on this website without YOUR bigotted namecalling of every thing and person you don't like. There is no one on this site that even approaches you in the vitriolic manner that you attack..."

                  I usually like having fun and making fun, obfuscate things a bit without being specifically dishonest and enjoy a little banter... however... bull* really gets to me, too.

                  No, claiming it's "Anti-Religion" is not "conversley"... it's bull*.

                  Trevor ain't specifically anti-american, yet, again, clearly anti bull*, and thankfully, specifically yours, as you, sir, are a classhole (to say the least)... and are not allowed to use the term Nazi... ever. Get out of our country! We've tried to make progress in the last 100 years, yet certainly not able to enough because of the same old bull* trying hard to go backwards... and we just don't want your bull* around here anymore.

                  BTW- standing still / not progressing IS going backwards.

                  Here's a quote:

                  "..."Maybe the continued media glorification of the hip hop THUG life will result in some nice crackhouse jobs for these new "graduates"."..."

                  Your bull* has been called out. Again.

                2. RyokuMas
                  Coffee/keyboard

                  Re: No @ Trevor Potts

                  Holy shit, that was probably one of the best counter-rants I have ever read! What a fantastic start to a post-Easter weekend!

                  1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge
                    Pint

                    Re: No @ Trevor Potts

                    (beer)

      2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        Re: No

        If you make it the default, web sites will just ignore it saying "the user didn't intend to set it like that". If the default is off, then anyone who has DNT set most definitely DID intend to set that, and that argument that they "didn't mean to" falls flat.

        What is the point of a setting like that if it defaults to not allowing tracking? No one is going to enable that.

        Websites shouldn't be tracking you by default. It should be opt in, not opt out. Those that choose otherwise should be dragged up to Mt Erebus and chucked the fuck in.

        1. James 51

          Re: No

          That's why I don't like games workshop and black library websites. You can't go through the site if cookies are disabled, the site greys out and a big banner telling you to enable cookies come down.

      3. The_Idiot

        Re: No

        <

        If you make it the default, web sites will just ignore it saying "the user didn't intend to set it like that"

        >

        So if it is in fact off by default, then web sites should just ignore it being off and not track, since the user 'might not have intended them to track them'? Are there any statistical odds, measurable by modern science, that this side of the same logic would ever have been raised if Microsoft had left it off be default from the beginning?

        Where a function brings advantage to others (and possible risk to the user), then in my view the protocol should be OPT IN by default, not OPT OUT by default. That is, that in this case the Microsoft approach should be the pattern, not the argument. But then - I'm an Idiot (blush).

      4. Mark 85

        Re: No

        The advertisers are making the assumption that since it's default, no one ever checks it. OTOH, can they positively say that the user didn't look, and said "ah... good. They checked the box for me.". Let's face it, advertisers are weasels and assume that ads add to our "user experience".... which is pure BS from where I sit.

  3. Mark 85

    " the automatic setting would "degrade the experience of the majority of users."

    Nope, not the user's but the advertisers and those who profit from them. DNT has become a joke anyway as most sites ignore it. It's just a feel good setting.... '

    And Yahoo! are idiots.

    1. king of foo

      Call me jaded, but wasn't this Microsoft's intention all along?

      By enabling by default they gave advertisers ammunition to argue against DNT, whilst appearing to support it.

    2. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Tsk, tsk

      Typical confusion there. You think the "users" are the people.

      That definition is now obsolete and has been superseded by "the entities who give us money", i.e. the advertisers.

      The people are no longer users, they are targets to be hunted down as efficiently as possible for the good of the users (i.e. their bank account).

      Please update your dictionary accordingly.

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. elDog

      I'd go a bit farther (further, fuhrer, father) and pop up a warning whenever the user (customer) clicks on a website that doesn't say "I WILL NOT TRACK YOU". If the customer (since that's what we are nowadays) wants, they can disable the TRACK notification globally or per site.

      Just like we can negotiate protocols while exchanging those getting-to-know-you handshakes, perhaps we should require the site to supply a token that indicates that tracking is not performed. If the site is found cheating, public stoning and blacklists would be appropriate.

      1. Someone Else Silver badge
        Holmes

        It's a common misunderstanding...

        If the customer (since that's what we are nowadays) wants, they can disable the TRACK notification globally or per site.

        It's a common misunderstanding that many like you make, but so that you don't make the same mistake again, please note: From the point of view of the likes of Yahoo! and their ilk, we are most certainly not their customers, we are their product.

        1. dorsetknob
          Black Helicopters

          Re: It's a common misunderstanding...

          "" If the customer (since that's what we are nowadays) ""

          Let me Correct your error

          "" If the Product (since that's what we are nowadays) .

          Next thing you know

          when you log on your be issued a Parcel force / UPS tracking number

        2. Charles 9

          Re: It's a common misunderstanding...

          But if we're the product then we're passive and don't buy anything meaning we never respond to ads making them pointless. We MUST be customers in order to make ads worthwhile.

  5. x 7

    the sooner microsoft buy yahoo and shut it down, the better

    1. Disko
      Flame

      FTFY

      >> the sooner Microsoft buys Yahoo and all go titsup

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You can't trust sites to honor do not track requests or anything alike

    You have to actively block them killing any script, cookie and other crap they throw at your browser.

    Anyway if Yahoos think they can get out of the mud stealing some more data... they will soon be just an entry in Wikipedia.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: You can't trust sites to honor do not track requests or anything alike

      And then they start using ad-blocker-blockers and pay walls...

  7. Camilla Smythe

    We have noticed...

    <script>

    We have noticed...That your browser has the Do Not Track flag set. Either you took the decision not to take it up the arse or someone else took it for you.

    --obfuscated code to snaffle various bits of data--

    EAT MY FUCKING COOKIES YOU BITCH. BEND OVER AND TAKE MY CONFECTIONERY YOU MISERABLE FUCKING CUNT. HAVE SOME FUCKING ADVERTS AS WELL!!!! FUCK YOU ALL. BWAH-HA-HA-HA. PROFIT!! SQUEE, SQUEEE, SQUEEEE. OH MY GOD I'VE JUST COME ALL OVER YOUR COMPUTER. CLICK ON YES OR CLICK ON YES BUT IGNORE MY CHOICE.

    </script>

    1. king of foo

      Re: We have noticed...

      Did you just copy/paste this from Facebook's T's & C's page?

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: We have noticed...

        This remind me of the SciFi story where a marketing experiment is run (in a [spoiler]groundhog-day closed-world environment[/spoiler]) to see whether a good, fat heckling by megaphone at 0600 to BUY THE FUCKING FRIDGE YOU SHIT followed by an apology a bit later will actually result in more sales. I can't remember who wrote it though.

  8. Davie Dee

    I'm sorry but who are they actually protecting by ignoring DNT headers? sure as shit isn't the user.

    hands up who wants to be tracked by default? all those who do downvote my post, all those that don't upvote it. lets get some stats on this

    1. Mark 85
      Devil

      Hmm... will our votes be tracked???? Enquiring minds and all that.

      1. ratfox

        I want to be tracked

        I want the Register to remember who I am so I don't need to login every time I write a comment. I want Facebook to remember which messages I read so it can only show me the small percentage I'm actually interested in. I want Amazon to remember my tastes in books so they can tell me which of my favorite authors just write a new book. I want Google Now to tell me that XKCD was updated recently.

        That doesn't mean everybody else has to be tracked, though.

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