Mozilla Do-Not-Track Feature Has a Fatal Flaw

From PC World: The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recognized that tracking is a privacy concern for Web-surfing citizens, and it has proposed implementation of some sort of do-not-track framework similar to the do-not-call lists that are supposed to keep annoying telemarketers from calling you.

Mozilla proposes using an HTTP header to indicate not wanting to be tracked by Web sites.Following the FTC call for better privacy protection, Microsoft revealed security controls in the upcoming Internet Explorer 9 which enable users to restrict tracking efforts. The problem with the Microsoft approach, though, is that it is a sort of manual black list requiring user's to identify and block Web sites on a case by case basis. The IE9 do-not-track solution requires too much user intervention and relies too much on users being able to determine which sites need blocking.

A blog post from Mozilla's head of privacy explains, "The advantages to the header technique are that it is less complex and simple to locate and use, it is more persistent than cookie-based solutions, and it doesn't rely on user's finding and loading lists of ad networks and advertisers to work," adding, "We're not the only ones who think this approach makes sense. The FTC calls for a "more uniform and comprehensive consumer choice mechanism for online behavioral advertising."

The post goes on, however, to acknowledge the major hurdle facing this solution. "The challenge with adding this to the header is that it requires both browsers and sites to implement it to be fully effective." In other words, you can set the do-not-track opt out feature in your Firefox browser all you like, but if the Web sites that are doing the tracking choose to ignore Mozilla's do-not-track header it won't do any good.

The problem with laws is that they only affect the law abiding, and this Mozilla privacy feature is no exception. The problem with expecting cooperation from Web sites that are tracking Internet usage and gathering information on users' Web habits is that most of those organizations are already aware that it is ethically questionable, and that the FTC is working to combat the practice, yet they choose to continue collecting the data anyway.

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