“Microsoft and Madison Avenue are in a battle unlike anything we’ve seen for years,” Julia Boorstin reports for CNBC. “They’re fighting over the future of Internet advertising, and the $70 billion annual global ad business is at stake.”
“It all comes down to one little default setting-Do Not Track – in a new browser, Internet Explorer 10,” Boorstin reports. “Microsoft is defaulting to a ‘Do Not Track’ setting to give web surfers more privacy, looking to regain market share from Google’s Chrome. But this has advertising agencies up in arms – this will make it impossible for them to target ads to millions of users.”
Boorstin reports, “This issue is coming to a head today as industry-standards body, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) meets at Microsoft. The industry group is evaluating whether to give its stamp of approval to the browser, and most importantly, what the standards for ‘do not track’ will be for websites. Advertisers are lobbying the W3C to exempt them from complying with “do not track” messages if it’s the default setting. Two of the largest ad agencies, WPP (WPPGY) and Publicis Groupe (PUBGY) , which work with Microsoft on their ad campaigns, have reached out to the company on the issue… Companies that have permission to track their users [could benefit], because those users have logged in, like to Gmail. That also includes Yahoo (think Yahoo mail), Amazon and even Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “JayinDC” for the heads up.]
Collusion for Safari works great for anti-tracking.
(for OS X, not iOS to my knowledge.)
I must give kudos to Microsoft for this one.
Didn’t MS reverse themselves last week, and agree NOT to make anti-tracking the DEFAULT?
I believe this author is not to with it on current events.
Amazing. Microsoft actually standing up for consumer rights. Let’s hope they don’t puss out like they usually do.
No means No.
Those companies want to “Ad rape” people.
Tracking is good. If done well, it will reduce the number of stupid ads that we will never respond to and cost advertisers a lot of money and annoy web users.
I want ads for the things I am in the market for and don’t want to see the things I will never want (e.g. Invisible Shield)
Yes. And good for you being able to make that choice IF you want to. I, on the other hand, don’t want any ads targeted at me. If I want to buy something, I go looking for it. I don’t need a daily barrage of ads.
And – how is tracking my movements online any different than tracking my iPhone as I move around the world, or tracking me personally if I had an RFID chip? None of your business, o corporate overlords.
“Your movements are all belong to us.”
“No thanks” to any of it.
By the way, I count 14 different ad tracking bugs on this MDN page!
Yep, me too. Thanks Ghostery.
A lot on this site makes no sense and the adds suck. However, I consider it a very small price to pay for the news, the Takes and the contributors!
You are obviously used to the poorly targeted intrusive ads of today. Imaging a future where ads only appear when you want them or need them and they are for the exact thing you want and they are on sale.
Resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilated.
If you dont want to be tracked move to a cave in the desert.
… Or the USA where personal privacy is a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT. Any tard claiming to the contrary has NOT read the USA Bill of Rights.
Let’s read:
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Tracking Control for those who want and deserve personal privacy:
Besides Safari’s
Do Not Track Plus extension,
Incognito extension,
and Ghostery,
I’m also using the Cookie app. (There is a free stripped down Safari extension version as well).
• It lets me choose exactly what cookies and website databases I will allow for my web browsers.
• It identifies ALL surveillance cookies (aka ‘tracking’ cookies), as opposed to benign and useful cookies.
• It can be set to dump ALL unapproved cookies either at the time you quit your browser OR at any set time interval. (I have it set to dump unapproved cookies every few minutes).
(I’m obsessive about tracking and have the pile of stuff above because I teach and write about Internet security).
Today we learned that advertising groups have FAILed to approve full support of the Do Not Track system. They insist upon user surveillance with or without targeted ads.
‘Do Not Track’ Web System Falls Off The Rails
Mike Zaneis of the Interactive Advertising Bureau trade group says his industry will suffer if people can just switch off data collection. (Bolding = mine).
I say:
THEN SUFFER, MARKETING-MORON bozons! User surveillance is NOT your right. Personal privacy is everyone’s right. Deal with it.
Therefore, annoying as they are, browser tools like those above will remain important for some time to come.
The FIGHT for user privacy! Win it! 😀