I read a post by Jake Ludington on Has Offers.com on Microsoft’s making of it’s implementation of browser “Do Not Track” as the default in Internet Explorer 10.
After ruminating about it overnight, I have the following thoughts.
No matter how this shakes out, one thing still remains: Microsoft, in implementing this option as a default, STILL hasn’t delivered on restricting the ability of websites to track Internet Explorer users against their wishes.
Why?
This scheme “requests” that websites not track the user, and displaying the ultimate naïveté, expects that websites to respect that request!
That is simply unacceptable.
This Internet Explorer position on “Do-Not-Track” is beyond naïve, and careens boldly into being completely disingenuous.
As we all know, websites, and indeed several companies – for which Google, Facebook, and indeed, Twitter, come to mind – have shown themselves incapable to being ethical about user privacy, and have revealed themselves as being quite willing and very able to ignore user wishes, tracking unsuspecting users willy-nilly across the Intertubes.
A better alternative to the above would be the development and implementation of a veritable nuclear option, whereby Internet Explorer doesn’t simply “request” that sites “do NOT Track”, but strictly enforces it, making websites inform users of their need to track them, the benefits derived from that tracking, and the granularity of the information gleaned from such tracking. Following that, the sites would then have to implicitly request the user’s permission to track them, and also inform users of the ultimate disposition, aggregation, and/or distribution of such tracking information, also letting users know of the sunset date(s) for the expiration of said data.
Other than that, this scheme, as currently implemented, whether optional, or as the default in Internet Explorer, or any other browser, for that matter, should be revealed as what is truly is: simple privacy masturbation foisted upon us by browser developers.
And should be exposed as such.
Follow @johnobeto© 2012, John Obeto for AbsolutelyWindows & Blackground Media Unlimited
