Via TLF, Decaln McCullagh nails the most obvious reason why a “Do Not Track” list seems unnecessary: Anyone who cares enough about this form of “privacy invasion” (a form that strikes me as fairly benign, but YMMV) presumably also cares enough to spend 30 seconds figuring out how to block cookies from non-trusted sites. Is there some huge population of folks out there who are really horrified by targeted ads but lack the ability to circumvent tracking?
Do Not Track
November 2nd, 2007 · 2 Comments
Tags: Tech and Tech Policy
2 responses so far ↓
1 Tom // Nov 2, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Technically, I’m sympathetic: it’s really not that hard to block cookies. From a practical standpoint, though, the AOL search data fiasco gives me pause.
I think there are ways to address this issue at the source, though, rather than maintaining an unwieldy centralized list. Keeping a constellation of non-interlinked cookies (rather than, say, having all of your google.com activity tied together) can go a long way to alleviating these problems. If the industry could agree to some sensible guidelines I think the problem would be diminished to the point where it could mostly be ignored.
2 dr. zeuss // Nov 4, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Figuring out how to block cookies from non-trusted sites isn’t tough. But my parents, who don’t even know the word cookies, will read that they’re being tracked and be left with a sense of nameless dread, unjustified as it may be, and no way of knowing how to alleviate it.