The sad, slow-motion death of Do Not Track

Posted Jul 22, 2020 19:30 UTC (Wed) by LiPo (guest, #129784)
Parent article: The sad, slow-motion death of Do Not Track

DNT is currently mentioned in the latest version of proposed ePrivacy regulation by both EU parliament and the council. GDPR mentions that users do not want to see banners in one of its recitals. Interpreting DNT as a signal of the user that does not want to be tracked as the implementation of the recital 66 of ePrivacy directive from 2009 seems to be a very natural way. The problem is that no data protection authority in EU has the courage to enforce such interpretation at the moment. Hopefully this will change sooner than later.

The sad, slow-motion death of Do Not Track

Posted Jul 22, 2020 20:01 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (6 responses)

DNT was *spec'd* as "opt in". That's why it was so egregious of IE to enable it as the default. Basically completely ignored the whole point behind it.

It would be nice if the EU said "it's opt-in. The user has explicity asked for what they want. IT'S ENFORCEABLE".

Cheers,
Wol

The sad, slow-motion death of Do Not Track

Posted Jul 23, 2020 8:30 UTC (Thu) by mageta (subscriber, #89696) [Link] (4 responses)

The logic would still be the wrong way around. The default ought to be "I don't want to be tracked", and you can opt-in to be tracked if you like. If its any other way no meaningful amount of people will ever use it.

I mean that's also how the GDPR works AFAIK. It is opt-in for your personal data being processed, not the other way around, where personal data would be processed by default.

If you make privacy an optional feature that only "tech-savy" users ever will be using you already fail from the outset to do anything meaningful IMHO. Which is also one of the big failings of DNT. Its also stated in the article: the amount of people that ever used it is low.

The sad, slow-motion death of Do Not Track

Posted Jul 24, 2020 3:42 UTC (Fri) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link] (1 responses)

When it's "opt in", we can make the argument that DNT represents the desire of the user. That made it easier to argue in and out of court that advertisers should respect it.

When it's "opt out", it no longer reflects the desire of the user which made it much easier for the ad industry to ignore it.

The sad, slow-motion death of Do Not Track

Posted Jul 26, 2020 12:44 UTC (Sun) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]

Well here in bad old Europe you need the clear and unambiguous, actively given consent of the user to be allowed to track in the first place. So DNT must be enabled by default to have a chance to be taken seriously in the first place. Only if its enabled by default can its absence be interpreted as consent of the user to be tracked. Though even then a "Please Track Me" header would be better.

The sad, slow-motion death of Do Not Track

Posted Jul 26, 2020 23:04 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

> The logic would still be the wrong way around. The default ought to be "I don't want to be tracked", and you can opt-in to be tracked if you like. If its any other way no meaningful amount of people will ever use it.

That's irrelevant. If DNT is set, then the user has explicitly made a choice. In that case browsers shouldn't kick up a banner, they should just honour that choice.

If W3C or whoever specifies an equivalent "opt in" "I don't care about trackers" flag, then web sites should honour that, too.

Cheers,
Wol

The sad, slow-motion death of Do Not Track

Posted Jul 27, 2020 3:07 UTC (Mon) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

But it doesn't match many sites' business model. So instead of no popup you'd see the annoying "hey, make an exception for us or subscribe, otherwise you won't see any content" popup we're been fed by news sites for the last couple years.

The sad, slow-motion death of Do Not Track

Posted Jul 24, 2020 8:45 UTC (Fri) by LiPo (guest, #129784) [Link]

IE was right. Tracking on the Internet brakes European fundamental rights. See also communication to W3C at https://ec.europa.eu/justice/article-29/documentation/oth..., for example, https://ec.europa.eu/justice/article-29/documentation/oth....

It is very unlikely if EU says the not tracking is opt-in. Actually, it is the other way around. The user has to give unambiguous, specific, informed and free consent to be tracked, see GDPR.

The sad, slow-motion death of Do Not Track

Posted Jul 23, 2020 15:15 UTC (Thu) by davecb (subscriber, #1574) [Link]

I also recommended giving it a legal definition in a Candian request for comments by the CRTC