Yahoo! is latest company to ignore IE10's Do-Not-Track setting

Rick

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Microsoft's decision to enable Do Not Track in IE10 by default is still managing to elicit industry criticism. Yahoo is the latest company to ignore IE10's on-by-default DNT policy, joining Apache in not recognizing the browser's DNT setting. Yahoo reasons that Microsoft's automatic implementation of DNT degrades the user experience and does so without expressing the intent of those users.

Ultimately, we believe that DNT must map to user intent — not to the intent of one browser creator, plug-in writer, or third-party software service. Therefore, although Yahoo! will continue to offer Ad Interest Manager and other tools, we will not recognize IE10’s default DNT signal on Yahoo! properties at this time.

Source: ypolicyblog.com

DNT, if you haven't heard, promises to give web surfers an officially sanctioned way to avoid being tracked by online advertisers. The open standard remains a work in progress though, meaning some aspects of DNT are still open to interpretation; however, recent WC3 drafts spell out that DNT should never be enabled by default. Of course, IE10 remains the lone browser ignoring this rule.

A user agent MUST have a default tracking preference of unset (not enabled) unless a specific tracking preference is implied by the decision to use that agent.

Source: wc3.org, current DNT draft

Although Yahoo is clearly against the default enablement of DNT, the company says it doesn't mind DNT itself. Yahoo writes that it is committed to working with the W3C in order to ensure the standard meets user expectations, gives meaningful results and remains transparent. It portrays users opting-in for DNT as another way for those individuals to personalize their online experience.

In principle, we support “Do Not Track” (DNT). Unfortunately, because discussions have not yet resulted in a final standard for how to implement DNT, the current DNT signal can easily be abused. Recently, Microsoft unilaterally decided to turn on DNT in Internet Explorer 10 by default, rather than at users’ direction. In our view, this degrades the experience for the majority of users and makes it hard to deliver on our value proposition to them. It basically means that the DNT signal from IE10 doesn’t express user intent.

Source: ypolicyblog.com

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) also recently spoke out about IE10's DNT policy. The organization described Microsoft's decision to enable DNT by default as a profound disappointment, reasoning that the feature will hurt ad targeting specificity and as a result, will damage overall advertising revenue. The ANA argues that decreased ad revenue will provide less incentive for quality content and will ultimately hurt the web.

Microsoft's Windows 8, which comes bundled with IE10, was launched the same day Yahoo published their statement. It'll be interesting to see if Microsoft sticks to its guns despite the industry backlash.

Permalink to story.

 
This is what I want.
I don't want to be tracked.
I don't want to allow cookies.
I do want to allow forum logins to be remembered.
The only way I know of allowing browsers to remember forum logins is to allow cookies.
Unfortunately this also allows tracking capabilities, which should be an opt-in not an opt-out options.
 
Guess I won't be going to Yahoo News daily from now on.

Anti-consumer thinking results in a downward business spiral.
 
This is what I want.
I don't want to be tracked.
I don't want to allow cookies.
I do want to allow forum logins to be remembered.
The only way I know of allowing browsers to remember forum logins is to allow cookies.
Unfortunately this also allows tracking capabilities, which should be an opt-in not an opt-out options.

Just use default setting for cookies to "DENY" and then allow few custom sites you want cookies to be allowed for. See Firefox -> Options -> Privacy -> "Exception".

see the image -> http://minus.com/lrNjMN3DOnuQU

This can also be done in Chrome I think! I've been using this setup for more than a year now,
 
This is what I want.
I don't want to be tracked.
I don't want to allow cookies.
I do want to allow forum logins to be remembered.
The only way I know of allowing browsers to remember forum logins is to allow cookies.
Unfortunately this also allows tracking capabilities, which should be an opt-in not an opt-out options.

Just use default setting for cookies to "DENY" and then allow few custom sites you want cookies to be allowed for. See Firefox -> Options -> Privacy -> "Exception".

see the image -> http://minus.com/lrNjMN3DOnuQU

This can also be done in Chrome I think! I've been using this setup for more than a year now,
Nah. Put your default as allow for sessions and then change as a per case basis. This will ensure that you do not get issues with webpages that want you to have cookies in order to operate.

:)...
 
" Unfortunately, because discussions have not yet resulted in a final standard for how to implement DNT, the current DNT signal can easily be abused."

Lmao am I the only one finding it funny that privacy equals abuse nowdays? Yahoo I'm sorry but its hard to take a company serious that Insists that the default should be spamming users with any kind of ad -targeted or not.
 
I'm curious

When did offering a service suddenly become a right to track your personal data?

I'm tired of all these companies taking my data, selling it, losing it and whatever else(ing) it.

I don't watch commercial TV because there are more commercials than TV
I don't go to the movies early anymore because there are 50 ads and maybe 1 or 2 trailers now
I DO read books the old fashioned way because if I was to buy (BUY) an eReader I have to put up with ads (I'm lookin at you Amazon/Kindle)

I'll be dammed if these people are going to push me off the web too!

Bring on the DNT and make it as watertight as you can is my vote!
 
I'm curious

When did offering a service suddenly become a right to track your personal data?

I'm tired of all these companies taking my data, selling it, losing it and whatever else(ing) it.

I don't watch commercial TV because there are more commercials than TV
I don't go to the movies early anymore because there are 50 ads and maybe 1 or 2 trailers now
I DO read books the old fashioned way because if I was to buy (BUY) an eReader I have to put up with ads (I'm lookin at you Amazon/Kindle)

I'll be dammed if these people are going to push me off the web too!

Bring on the DNT and make it as watertight as you can is my vote!
Well: someone is naïve!


If you are not paying for a product or service than it is you that is being sold...
 
If you are not paying for a product or service than it is you that is being sold...
I think I will call this phenomenon, "Digital Slavery". I wonder what it would cost in service fees, once you made the round with everyone who wants to sell your data. Honestly lets get real here, does anyone have enough money to prevent being sold?
 
I'm curious

When did offering a service suddenly become a right to track your personal data?

I'm tired of all these companies taking my data, selling it, losing it and whatever else(ing) it.

I don't watch commercial TV because there are more commercials than TV
I don't go to the movies early anymore because there are 50 ads and maybe 1 or 2 trailers now
I DO read books the old fashioned way because if I was to buy (BUY) an eReader I have to put up with ads (I'm lookin at you Amazon/Kindle)

I'll be dammed if these people are going to push me off the web too!

Bring on the DNT and make it as watertight as you can is my vote!

Perfectly put, sums up my thoughts/behaviour exactly.
 
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