DoNotTrack for Firefox
p2pnet view P2P | Advertising:- The success of Google and Fa$ebook, and other online ad companies of their ilk, is because their businesses largely rely on the fact that, generally speaking, people can’t choose whether or not their personal and private information is scooped up for profitable (for the companies) re-cycling.
The data equals hard cash and if people want out, they’re forced to jump through endless hoops, with absolutely no guarantees of success.
So it’s good to learn Mozilla is developing on a new ‘do not track’ privacy feature for Firefox which puts at least partial control back in the hands of surfers.
“As the first of many steps, we are proposing a feature that allows users to set a browser preference that will broadcast their desire to opt-out of third party, advertising-based tracking by transmitting a Do Not Track HTTP header with every click or page view in Firefox”, writes Alex Fowler on his First Person Cookie blog.
“When the feature is enabled and users turn it on, web sites will be told by Firefox that a user would like to opt-out of OBA”, he says, continuing >>>
We believe the header-based approach has the potential to be better for the web in the long run because it is a clearer and more universal opt-out mechanism than cookies or blacklists.
The Do Not Track header builds on the work the advertising networks have done to date without the cookie-based systems they make available to people online. 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. 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. In addition, the HTTP header technique has been proposed before (see the good work by donottrack.us and the UBAO add-on).
The challenge with adding this to the header is that it requires both browsers and sites to implement it to be fully effective. Mozilla recognizes the chicken and egg problem and we are taking the step of proposing that this feature be considered for upcoming releases of Firefox.
My colleagues are posting our proposal to the Mozilla community today for discussion, along with the technical patch to be considered for implementation in Firefox. We are also committed to working with the technical community to standardize the header across the industry. We ask that sites and advertisers join with us to recognize this new header and honor people’s privacy choices just as they are with opt-outs for OBA.
“It’s important to reiterate that while our initial proposal does not represent a complete solution, this is one step of many for us to see if the header approach can work and confirm that it will provide our users a more nuanced, persistent tool for communicating privacy choices on the web”, Fowler adds on First Person Cookie.
First Person Cookie – More Choice and Control Over Online Tracking, January 23, 2011
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan
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January 25th, 2011 at 2:23 pm
I’m a firm believer in watching your privacy and guarding your data. We have already learned, if you won’t do it, then no one will do it for you. In fact they will take advantage of it.
So I run in the private mode at all times. No history is kept on hand. I use Beef Taco with FireFox that assures I have control of the cookies at my end and not where I have to show up everyday at the place I don’t want to get my data and have it stolen while I’m trying to opt out once again. I do my best to make sure there is nothing there to get and that my browser sends as little data as possible beyond what is needed to display the web page.
A ‘do not track’ header will be nice but who is to say the receiving site will obey or monitor it? You already know that when money gets involved people will do stuff they would never dream of otherwise and invading your data and privacy is the least of what they will consider.
While welcome, it looks like just another item to run on top of a ton of others already necessary.
January 27th, 2011 at 1:42 am
Flash also has a tracking mechanism, you may want to disable it on everything except a whitelist.